From a hero's welcome to a one-way ticket out of town, Kenny Pickett era brief for Steelers

The satisfaction and pride were palpable on the faces of both Kenny Pickett and Mike Tomlin the afternoon of April 29, 2022. The duo was standing off to the far left of Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II, who was behind a podium at the front of a large room in the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.

The trio was gathered in front of a few dozen media members who were on hand for the formal introduction of Pickett, the team’s first-round draft pick the evening prior.

In truth, few there needed to be literally introduced to Pickett. He’d spent countless hours over the prior five years in that same structure nestled between the Monongahela River and freight-rail train tracks on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

“Usually,” Rooney said, “I get to say to (the Steelers’ first-round pick), ‘Welcome to Pittsburgh,’ and today I get to say, ‘Welcome to this side of the building.’ ”

Pickett and Tomlin, each dressed in a sport coat, smiled widely. Less than a minute later, after Rooney had listed superlatives of Pickett’s sparkling college résumé at Pitt, he shook Pickett’s hand with an audible background of scores of camera shutters.

Pickett, the star of the college team that shares a practice facility with the Steelers, was staying in Pittsburgh.

Though Pickett grew up near the New Jersey coastline, he’d earned status as a “hometown hero” in the Steel City by way of leading Pitt to its first conference championship in school history in 2021. Pitt’s first finalist for the Heisman Trophy in 18 years and the first quarterback off the draft board in 2022, Pickett was something of a storybook choice for the Steelers as their successor to future Hall of Fame quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

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Less than 23 months later, Pickett’s marriage to the Steelers unceremoniously ended with no fanfare — or even much advance warning. Word broke midafternoon Friday that the Steelers had traded Pickett to the Philadelphia Eagles, the team Pickett grew up rooting for.

The package sent in return for Pickett was as underwhelming as his career had been with the Steelers: The Eagles surrendered two 2025 seventh-round picks and swapped a third-rounder in next month’s draft for a Steelers’ fourth-round pick.

In return, Philadelphia got the quarterback who had the worst touchdown-pass percentage of any who’d thrown at least 500 passes over the past 54 seasons.

But it wasn’t necessarily the mere 13 touchdown passes in 25 career games that did in Pickett’s Steelers career. Nor was it that among 32 qualifying NFL quarterbacks this past season Pickett ranked 27th in yards per attempt and 28th in completion percentage, or even that Pickett’s six touchdown passes were bested by 36 quarterbacks across the league in 2023.

It was that the Steelers came to the apparent determination that Pickett was unwilling to accept a backup role or the prospect of a competition to hold on to the starting job.

That Friday’s trade was confirmed to TribLive about 3½ hours after the Steelers officially announced the signing of nine-time Pro Bowl quarterback Russell Wilson was not a coincidence.

The team would not have signed Wilson, a 35-year-old former Super Bowl champion, if it was 100% sold on Pickett as the franchise quarterback. Wilson, in turn, would not have agreed to join the Steelers if he believed Pickett was going to be the 2024 starter.

Pickett held unwavering public backing from Tomlin throughout his mediocre-at-best production this past season. But he watched from the sidelines as a backup for both the Steelers’ regular-season finale in Baltimore and their wild-card round playoff game at the Buffalo Bills.

Pickett at first fell out of the lineup because of an ankle injury suffered during a Dec. 3 loss. But once Mason Rudolph took over to lead a home win Dec. 23 following the benching of former No. 2 QB Mitch Trubisky, Tomlin elected to stick with Rudolph despite Pickett’s return to practice.

Apparently healthy enough to play, Pickett did not dress for a Dec. 31 Rudolph-led win at Seattle that came four days after he offered a curiously curt and flat answer of “no” to a question about whether he’d learned anything or gleaned any lessons by watching Rudolph succeed in the previous game.

It would have been inconceivable then to consider that Pickett had played his final down for the Steelers. That he had is a remarkable development given his erstwhile popularity in the city, robust public support from the organization and first-round draft status.

It had been 32 years since the Steelers gave up on a first-round pick before the start of his third season with the team.

It was impossible to ignore Friday that the trade of Pickett came to light came about two hours after Wilson had stood at a podium at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, with Tomlin listening on while standing off to the left with palpable pride.

Less than two years ago, similarly, Tomlin beamed as he stood tall in a visually tangible display of support for a prospective new starting quarterback. Little did anyone know then that Pickett’s tenure as the Steelers’ face of the franchise would end so quickly.