With the 20th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers select Pittsburgh QB Kenny Pickett.
The Steelers had their choice of any QB on the board with none of them taken in the top 19. They took the hometown Pickett.
Pickett broke out in 2021 for the Panthers, throwing 42 TDs to just 7 INTs. He led the Panthers to an 11-win season.
Check out the video of Pickett getting the call.
Pickett ran the most pro-style offense of any of the QBs at the top of the class. And the Steelers, next door to the Panthers’ facility, knew him well. They choose Pickett over the field: Malik Willis and others.
Check out our profile on Pickett below.
During this year’s Senior Bowl, Pickett told us he was hoping to stay home in Pittsburgh.
“The possibility of getting drafted there would be really unbelievable. Pittsburgh is really my second home. That’d be kind of a dream.”
Pickett is Kevin Colbert’s final first-round pick as GM of the Steelers. And Colbert secures the team’s hopeful QB of the future.
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the team liked Pickett’s maturity and NFL readiness, and called it a true competition for the starting job this summer with Mitch Trubisky, and to a lesser extent, Mason Rudolph.
Tomlin cited the pro-style offense he ran and accuracy as the reasons why the team took him.
In their post-pick press conference, Colbert stressed the importance of the QB position and framed it as a three-man competition between Pickett, Trubisky, and Rudolph.
