Kenny Pickett named Steelers’ rookie of the year, Mason Cole honored for media cooperation

The top draft pick became the top rookie, once again.

Kenny Pickett on Wednesday was honored with the Joe Greene Great Performance Award, making it five consecutive years the Pittsburgh Steelers’ first draft pick is named team rookie of the year.

The award is chosen via balloting by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pro Football Writers Association.

The No. 20 overall draft pick, Pickett began training camp as the third-stringer on the Steelers’ quarterback depth chart but was up to No. 2 by the start of the regular season. During halftime of Week 4, he took over for Mitch Trubisky and has been the Steelers’ starter (aside from injury absences) ever since.

Pickett led come-from-behind winning touchdown drives in the final 3 minutes of games each of the past two weeks to improve to 6-5 as a starter. He has completed 64.4% of his passes and has 2,209 passing yards, six touchdown passes and three more rushing scores.

Pickett is the headliner of what has the look of a potentially strong rookie class, including second-round receiver George Pickens, third-round defensive lineman DeMarvin Leal, undrafted running back Jaylen Warren, sixth-round tight end Connor Heyward and seventh-round linebacker Mark Robinson.

“It’s really exciting,” Pickett said. “You have those conversations — it’s almost like when you’re a freshman in college, and you get to a new place — and you talk about how good you think you can be. I think we had those conversations when we were here, we got here early and we think we can be something.

“That all sounds good, (but) we’ve got to put it together. But I think if we continue to work together, the future’s bright for us. I’m excited for what it holds. But I think a lot of guys are really contributing in a big way this season. We’re going to continue to do that this last week and see what happens.”

Pickett joins running back Najee Harris (last year), wide receiver Chase Claypool (2020), linebacker Devin Bush (2019) and safety Terrell Edmunds (2018) as recent Steelers rookies of the year. All were first-round picks except for Claypool, who was a second-rounder when the Steelers had no first-round pick that season.

Interestingly, the most recent top Steelers’ draft pick who was not named rookie of the year was linebacker T.J. Watt, who in 2017 was second to second-rounder JuJu Smith-Schuster but was NFL Defensive Player of the Year last season.

Pickett joins his predecessor, Ben Roethlisberger, as the only true quarterbacks to win the Steelers’ rookie of the year since the honor was conceived in 1984. (Kordell Stewart won it in 1995 but was primarily a wide receiver that season).

Also announced Wednesday was “The Chief Award,” which is given to the Steeler who best exemplifies the spirit of cooperation with the media. Center Mason Cole won it in his first season with the club.

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