This year, the Pittsburgh Steelers could take another swing at drafting a quarterback in the first round. With this looking like a weaker quarterback class, though, some fans might be a little gun-shy about that. The last time the Steelers drafted a signal caller in Round 1, they took Kenny Pickett. That didn’t work out well at all. Chris Simms recently talked about why he thinks the Steelers made that selection, and why it went wrong.
“With the Kenny Pickett situation, just having talked to people there through the years, I think there was a little bit of, ‘Hey, we can’t wait to get a guy that replaces Big Ben [Roethlisberger] and move on to the next era,'” Simms said Wednesday on Pro Football Talk. “So that sped up the process a little bit, too.
“I also think the fact that Kenny Pickett was in that building similar to theirs, I just think there was too many positive stories they heard and some of the personal bias snuck onto the Pittsburgh Steelers as well. I think it was a little bit of that. Maybe that’s where they got led the wrong direction there. A little bit thirsty to replace Ben Roethlisberger and get that next guy.”
Pickett played college football at Pitt from 2017-21. Throughout that time, the Steelers got a good first-hand look at him. Pitt and the Steelers both play at Acrisure Stadium and share a practice facility. Therefore, there was likely a lot of familiarity between Pickett and the Steelers.
The Steelers selected Pickett with the 20th pick in the 2022 draft. That quarterback class was even weaker than this year’s. Pickett was the only quarterback drafted in the first round, and after him, no signal caller was selected until the third round.
Usually, in the draft, quarterbacks come at a premium. Their positional value tends to push them up draft boards, no matter their talent. It spoke volumes that the position was almost entirely ignored by teams in the first two rounds of the 2022 draft.
Simms probably hit the nail on the head when he said the Steelers were too “thirsty” to draft Roethlisberger’s successor. They allowed that need to compel them to draft a quarterback in the first round.
Now, the Steelers find themselves in a similar situation. The 2025 quarterback class isn’t as bad as it was in 2022, but it still isn’t amazing. Still, that position is clearly the Steelers’ biggest weakness. Hopefully, they learned a lesson from drafting Pickett. Maybe they can still draft a quarterback but not reach to do it. Then, they could try to find their franchise guy in the 2026 draft.
