With the 20th pick in the 2022 NFL draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers select Pitt QB Kenny Pickett.
GRADE: B.
The Steelers needed to hit it down the fairway with their quarterback search ,and Mitch Trubisky wasn’t going to do it. Pickett is that solid double — the most pro-ready quarterback in this class, and a prospect with some upside. At his best, Pickett projects as the good version of Kirk Cousins. Is that the upside you want to bet on? Or, do you take a more developmental guy with better traits like Malik Willis? The Steelers, who are a quarterback away from doing something special in the postseason, went with the safer bet.
Mark Schofield’s scouting report:
Height: 6’3″ (60th) Weight: 217 (36th)
40-Yard Dash: 4.73 seconds (66th)
Bench Press: N/A
Vertical Jump: 34 inches (76th)
Broad Jump: 10’1″ (90th)
3-Cone Drill: N/A
20-Yard Shuttle: N/A
Bio: Kenny Pickett was one of the top high school prospects coming out of New Jersey in the 2017 recruiting class, and after originally committing to Temple, he flipped his commitment to Pittsburgh, where he spent his entire collegiate career.
Pickett started the final game of the season during his true freshman year, leading Pittsburgh to an upset over Miami, who at the time was ranked the number-two team in the country. In that victory, Pickett hit on 18 of 29 passes for 193 yards and a touchdown, and ran for two more scores.
Pickett would be the Panthers starting quarterback for the rest of his time on campus, and he decided to use the extra year of eligibility granted to college athletes due to COVID-19 to return for one more year this past season. He is probably glad he did, as Pickett put himself into first-round contention with a season that saw him finish as a Heisman finalist. He threw for 4,319 yards and 42 touchdowns, and became the school’s career leader in passing touchdowns and passing yards, eclipsing Dan Marino.
Stat to Know: Over his first four years on campus, Pickett threw 39 touchdown passes. He threw 42 in his final season.
Strengths: While the argument for Willis is one of upside and ceiling, the argument for Pickett and the quarterback we are going to discuss next is one of floor. During his time in Pittsburgh Pickett displayed the ability to attack all levels of the field, to layer in throws around defenders and over coverage, and to work through concepts and get the football where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.
Pickett can attack defenses with anticipation on throws, and take advantage of coverage with an understanding of concepts and leverage. On this completion against Duke, you see those traits as he delivers the stop route on time and in rhythm, putting the throw towards the boundary and away from the leverage of the nearest defender:
As we have long maintained here at Touchdown Wire, yardage after the catch is in part a quarterback statistic. Pickett’s timing, rhythm and placement create the opportunity for YAC on this play.
Pickett is an accurate passer, and that continues even when he is on the move. In a win over Clemson that put him firmly in the first-round discussion, one of his biggest throws came on this third-down conversion before halftime, where he was used on a designed sprint-out to the right and dropped in a perfect throw while rolling out:
While not having the athleticism of Willis, Pickett can move well in the pocket — with a caveat to be discussed — and as we have seen, he can throw well when forced off the spot or while on the move.
Weaknesses: Much of the discussion regarding Pickett this draft cycle has focused on his hand size. To be clear, measuring in with 8.5-inch hands makes him an outlier, as the last quarterback with such a measurement was Michael Vick.
However, that measurement does need to be given context, as our own Doug Farrar did during the Combine. Are you seeing fumble issues? With 38 fumbles over four-plus years, including 26 lost fumbles, perhaps that is a big number. Then, watch him play in the elements. A few years ago Brett Rypien — a quarterback I was rather high on — faced similar concerns and you could see issues crop up when he was playing in the elements.
Pickett played his home games in Pittsburgh, and this past season you did not see issues with him losing the football in clean pockets due to weather conditions. However, in 2019 he coughed up the football in a game against Virginia Tech that was played in rainy conditions, where the ball seemed to slip out of his hands.
That was prior to him wearing a glove on his throwing hand.
However, the biggest concern, from where I sit, is how Picket handles pressure in the pocket. When he knows it is coming — and where it is coming from — he is adept at moving, sliding and creating space to extend plays. However, if the pressure comes in an unexpected manner, then his response to the pressure is a bit more erratic.
In the world of simulated pressures, where sometimes the points of pressure in the pocket come from areas you are not expecting them to, that is going to be something he must improve upon at the next level.
Conclusion: There are two teams that I think would be ideal landing spots for Pickett: Carolina and New Orleans. Both teams — with Ben McAdoo in Carolina and Pete Carmichael in New Orleans — are likely going to be rooted in West Coast passing concepts, a system that might be the ideal fit for Pickett and what he does best. Pickett is an accurate passer who throws with touch, rhythm and anticipation, things that still matter at the position. If he can clean up how he handles pressure in the pocket — or gets the chance to play behind a great offensive line — he can grow into an upper-level NFL starting quarterback.
Comparison: Joe Marino of The Draft Network went with the Andy Dalton comparison, and that seems rather accurate.
Resources: For a deeper dive on Pickett, you can watch this extensive breakdown of him put together by myself and Matt Waldman of the Rookie Scouting Portfolio:
You can also watch this dive into Pickett and the mental perspective: