{"id":495971,"date":"2026-02-28T17:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T17:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495971\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T17:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T17:16:07","slug":"kenny-pickett-draft-pick-named-worst-first-round-qb-selection-in-last-five-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/495971\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Pickett Draft Pick Named Worst First-Round QB Selection In Last Five Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the NFL Combine in full swing and the NFL Draft a mere two months away, talk about the quarterback class has picked up. With Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza expected to go first overall, ESPN\u2019s Matt Miller compared where he ranks<\/a> pre-draft compared to quarterbacks who went in the first round. Miller polled scouts and executives to make the list, which included only pre-draft evaluations. Former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Kenny Pickett, whom the team selected 20th overall in the 2022 NFL Draft, was listed as the worst quarterback, making his selection in the first round the worst since 2021.<\/p>\n

Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, topped the list, while Mendoza slotted in at No. 8, just in between Houston Texans QB C.J. Stroud, the No. 2 overall pick in 2023, and Minnesota Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy, the 10th overall selection in 2024. The two quarterbacks above Pickett were New York Giants QB Jaxson Dart and Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr., as that group rounded out the bottom three.<\/p>\n

Entering life post-Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers tried to find their quarterback of the future in Kevin Colbert\u2019s last draft. But a weak quarterback class didn\u2019t help matters, and the team settled on Pickett, who played his college football at the University of Pittsburgh. While Pickett showed flashes during his rookie season, he never put it together with the Steelers. An injury sidelined him at the end of his second season, and Mason Rudolph led the Steelers to three straight wins and a playoff appearance. Pickett was sent to the Philadelphia Eagles that offseason, with the Steelers acquiring Russell Wilson and later Justin Fields.<\/p>\n

All told, Pickett went 14-10 as a starter in Pittsburgh, but that was largely due to the strength of Pittsburgh\u2019s defense. He\u2019s now on his fifth team in just four seasons, and it\u2019s highly unlikely that he\u2019ll ever live up to his first-round billing. It wasn\u2019t as if the Steelers had many better options, though Malik Willis, who was considered among the top group of quarterbacks in the class, is expected to get paid this offseason after showing promise as a backup with the Green Bay Packers over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

But Willis has barely played, and there\u2019s no sure bet he would\u2019ve been a better option than Pickett. San Francisco 49ers QB Brock Purdy was \u201cMr. Irrelevant\u201d and so far, is the only quarterback from the 2021 draft class to emerge as a consistent starter. While the Pickett selection didn\u2019t materialize the way the Steelers hoped, as the team is still searching for its franchise signal-caller, any quarterback selection at that spot had a better chance of failing than working out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the NFL Combine in full swing and the NFL Draft a mere two months away, talk about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[352,399,1827,226842,398,396,397,99,3795],"class_list":{"0":"post-495971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-espn","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kenny-pickett","11":"tag-matt-miller","12":"tag-ncaa","13":"tag-ncaa-football","14":"tag-ncaafootball","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-trending"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}