Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers are getting ready for the 2025 NFL Draft, where they might once again be interested in the quarterback position, after a swing and a miss on Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. But president Art Rooney II says the organization doesn’t have anything to learn from its last go-around at drafting a quarterback.
Pickett is headed to the Super Bowl as the backup quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Steelers traded him there in March, following Pickett’s request, which came after the Steelers signed Russell Wilson.
The Steelers had high hopes for Pickett when they kept the Pitt product on the South Side with their first first-round selection used on a quarterback since Ben Roethlisberger.
Pickett showed some promise as a rookie in 2022, but failed to take a step forward in 2023. After a late-season ankle injury, he lost his job to veteran backup quarterback Mason Rudolph, and seemed to lose the faith of the leaders of the team’s locker room, as well, as veteran defenders Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick were part of the collective that set out to recruit Wilson to the Steelers once he hit free agency.
Pickett’s failure to grow on the field combined with the team’s continued reliance on failed offensive coordinator Matt Canada. Pickett got just one game without Canada as his playcaller before his injury. Canada still has not found another job since being fired by the Steelers mid-season in 2023.
In addition to not putting their first-round draft pick in an Xs and Os position to succeed, the Steelers seem to have mis-read Pickett’s personality, as well. The quarterback ruffled feathers when he refused to dress as an emergency backup at Seattle toward the end of the 2023 season — something both Wilson and Justin Fields did at times in 2024.
That personality fit came despite Pickett playing his college career in the same facility as the Steelers at Pitt. If anyone should have been able to know if he was the proper fit for the Steelers locker room, it was the Pittsburgh front office.
Despite those dual failures, Rooney said on Monday that he doesn’t think there’s a lesson to be learned from the Steelers draft miss on Pickett.
“I think that obviously it’s disappointing that Kenny didn’t work out to be our long term quarterback here,” Rooney said. “I’m not sure there’s a lot to be learned from that. We just have to look at the next opportunity and make sure we do a good job evaluating it the next time around.”
Rooney said the Steelers will likely be looking to the draft at the quarterback again in the 2025 and 2026 NFL Draft classes.
