Getty Steelers HC Mike Tomlin congratulates Kenny Pickett after game-winning TD.
Mike Tomlin is watching his prized quarterback evolve game-in and game-out and is excited about what he sees.
As he should be.
Kenny Pickett has shown poise and maturity as he develops into the kind of quarterback the Pittsburgh Steelers need to lead them for (hopefully) the next 15-20 years.
In the January 1 New Year’s Day battle with the Baltimore Ravens, Pickett led his soldiers downfield for a game-winning touchdown in its waning moments.
“Kenny f*****g Pickett,” is what Tomlin appears to say in ecstatically greeting Pickett on the sideline.
“Kenny. Fucking. Pickett.”
It initially appeared Pickett would be taken down nearly 10 yards behind the line to gain on a critical third down. Just then, with shades of Ben Roethlisberger, Pickett escaped the tackle by Ravens’ Jason Pierre-Paul and rolled out to find Najee Harris in the end zone.
In Pittsburgh’s last drive, Pickett went 5-for-6 on 64 yards. The score culminated in an 11-play, 80-yard drive that took 3:20 off the clock, leaving little time for a Baltimore team without timeouts. The game-winning touchdown was the second in as many weeks for Pickett.
As the rookie displayed in the 13-10 win over the Las Vegas Raiders on December 24, Pickett was calm, cool and collected, leading Pittsburgh on a 10-play, 76-yard drive before throwing an absolute dart to George Pickens over the middle for the game-sealing score.
According to OptaSTATS, the touchdown put Pickett in the history books as the first rookie in NFL history to have a game-winning touchdown pass in the final minute of the fourth quarter in back-to-back games.
Kenny Pickett of the @steelers is the first rookie in NFL history to have a game-winning TD pass in the final minute of the 4th quarter in back-to-back games.
The exceptional heads-up play by Pickett and Harris surprised the broadcast team of Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth as much as it shocked viewers.
“[Pickett] showed the kind of heart that Tomlin keeps telling us about meeting after meeting,” Collinsworth shared.
“You guys are hard to kill,” Collinsworth told Tomlin in broadcast meetings, to which Tomlin frankly replied, ‘We don’t die, we multiply.’ They showed exactly what that was tonight.”
As the win drew to a close, Tirico noted the Steelers coaching booth was next to the broadcast booth. “They’re up and banging on windows, they are going wild in there,” said Tirico.
Just like the young team found a way to beat the Raiders, they found a way to outscore the rival Ravens in enemy territory, no less.
The icing on the cake was Minkah Fitzpatrick’s sixth interception of the season to put the game away.
The Steelers played like a cohesive unit, and though it took him four unsuccessful trips to the red zone, Pickett was again the hero of this victory.
Ex-Steeler Ryan Clark’s Assessment of Kenny Pickett
Following the win, ESPN analyst and Pivot Podcast host Ryan Clark shared his assessment of Kenny Pickett.
“Kenny Pickett has some 
with him bruh… He can have a night when he just can’t find anything until you need it most. Little mittens may have small hands, but he got big nu… I mean a big heart!!”
Kenny Pickett has some 💩 with him bruh… He can have a night when he just can’t find anything until you need it most. Little mittens may have small hands, but he got big nu… I mean a big heart!!
Clark knows a thing or two about quarterback play, as he picked off a few 16 times in his day. A former Pro Bowl defensive back, Clark’s career spanned 13 seasons, eight of which were in Pittsburgh.