The Pittsburgh Steelers completely expected to have Russell Wilson and Kenny Pickett as their quarterback pair for 2024, yet they were exceptionally off-base in their appraisal of how Pickett would answer the move.
Another story from Brooke Pryor of ESPN went into how the Steelers redesignd their quarterback room during the offseason. The story talked about Pickett’s response to the Wilson marking and resulting exchange. As per the story, the group certainly had Pickett in their viewpoints in any event, while adding Wilson.
The Steelers believed Wilson’s presence would be a “benefit” to Pickett, and expected that adding Wilson would “get Kenny going” and drive him to be more serious. Eventually, the specific inverse occurred, as Pickett accepted the Wilson expansion addressed the Steelers backpedaling on a promise to give him first-group reps in any quarterback contest.
Reports proposed that Pickett didn’t deal with Wilson’s appearance well, which incited the group to exchange him to Philadelphia. Pickett himself surely didn’t reject that he was not content with how things went away from public scrutiny.
Pickett eventually accepted that he would have a fair chance at the beginning position and viewed Wilson’s appearance as sabotaging that. The Steelers saw things in an unexpected way. Obviously, the two were not in total agreement, and the exchange was unavoidable at that stage.