The Steelers' quarterback journey, and what happens next

PITTSBURGH — Mike Tomlin sat behind the dais in the fluorescently lit room at Acrisure Stadium and spoke for three minutes.

Of the 436 words the Pittsburgh Steelers coach said, few explained why he benched Mitch Trubisky for rookie first-round pick Kenny Pickett at halftime of the Steelers' 24-20 loss to the New York Jets on Sunday.

Even fewer indicated where Tomlin and the team would go from here, from a 1-3 start with a gauntlet of the NFL's best teams in front of them.

«We just thought we needed a spark,» Tomlin said. «We didn't do much in the first half, not enough offensively and thought he could provide a spark for us.

»I'm not going to talk extended as we sit here. We did what we needed to do to put ourselves in position to win this game. We'll do it again. But I like to just keep it where we are in terms of what transpired here today. We'll deal with next week, next week."

It's what Tomlin didn't say, though, that best describes the Steelers' current predicament.

To borrow a phrase the coach introduced in August 2020, the quarterback switch is the jello they can't get back in the box.

The Kenny Pickett era is here, and there's no going back.

From the minute the former Pitt quarterback was selected with the No. 20 overall pick, it was inevitable Pickett's time would eventually arrive, perhaps sooner rather than later after a bumbling beginning for the Steelers' offense.

But it's how it arrived that's the most surprising.

After definitively saying he wasn't considering changes to his quarterback or offensive coordinator following a Week 3 Thursday night loss to the Cleveland Browns, Tomlin reaffirmed his faith in the offense in his weekly Tuesday news conference. Known for delivering messages to his team through