PHOTO BY KARL ROSER | PITTSBURGH STEELERS

There’s still a chance they are who we thought they were, but we won’t know if the Steelers can actually become that until Kenny Pickett settles on an identity.

Specifically, is the Steelers’ second-year signal-caller the guy we’ve seen in quarters one through three this season?

Or, is Pickett the guy whose calling card has become saving the day in fourth quarters?

If you have the latter, you can win a championship.

But the former isn’t worthy as an NFL starter, not for a serious team with serious aspirations.

The numbers don’t lie.

Pickett has completed 58.6 percent of the passes he’s thrown in the first 45 minutes of games this season and has compiled a passer rating of 75.3 in that span.

In the final 15 minutes, he hits at a 72.7 percent success rate, and his passer rating is 108.2.

The numbers don’t lie, but nor do they accurately portray the staggering disparity in Pickett’s game.

Putting a face on them provides the necessary context.

In fourth quarters, Pickett is Tua Tagovailoa (the guy in Miami who possesses an NFL-best 106.8 passer rating overall this season).

In quarters one through three, Pickett is Zach Wilson (the guy who is single-handedly wrecking the Jets at 75.4).

Pickett’s overall passer rating of 81.4, likewise, won’t cut it.

But it’s what he can muster up when plays need to be made to win a game that continues to intrigue, even when he’s missing wide-open receivers.

PHOTO BY ABIGAIL DEAN | PITTSBURGH STEELERS

He’s Joe Blow, until he’s Joe Montana.

If the Steelers have arrived at a theory as to why this continues to be the case, they aren’t saying.

They’ve been asked, from Pickett, to his teammates, to offensive coordinator Matt Canada.

Invariably, the conversations go the way one went with head coach Mike Tomlin on Tuesday.

“He’s awesome in the fourth quarter, man,” Tomlin insisted, conveniently ignoring the specifics of the question, which inquired about what hasn’t been happening in the first three. “He rises up in those moments. He wants to be the reason why we’re successful. He prepares his tail off. In some instances where people run from challenges, he runs to challenges. And so, that’s why his performance is so good in the fourth.

“Those other quarters we’ll work on.”

They’d better work harder and faster.

It was once thought the offense in general and Pickett in particular would be part of the solution this season, not part of the problem.

Such thoughts, in fact, had been expressed in this very column.

Coming out of the preseason, it appeared Pickett’s development had somehow been accelerated, and that the Steelers had found their long-term successor to Ben Roethlisberger.

But it hasn’t played out that way nearly often enough.

As exciting as the comebacks have been, the way the Steelers made it to 5-3 through eight games constitutes doing it the hard way.

“I’m gonna say the same thing over and over, it’s consistency,” Pickett maintained this week. “We’ve shown that we can do it but we don’t do it through those (first three) quarters.”

They need to start, Pickett first and foremost.

The Steelers don’t need him to be Tua.

But he can’t be Zach Wilson.

If nothing else, the nine games left in the regular season ought to betray whether Pickett is the former, the latter or the something in between the Steelers desperately need.

That guy should be good enough for the offense to accomplish what it must, and for the team to become what it has intended to be all along.

“Just really putting up more points, more than 20 points per game,” wide receiver Diontae Johnson assessed. “That’s how we’re gonna win, putting up more than 20 points.”

If Pickett is who the Steelers thought he was, who they remain convinced he can be, 20-plus points a game ought to be reachable.

But if it’s beyond their grasp, that, too, will provide an answer.