Why I like Kenny Pickett More than Most (…and Hate Draft “Experts” More than Most)
February 24, 2022
by Paul Francis
I like Kenny Pickett…a lot. I don’t just like him because we desperately need a QB. I don’t just like him by default because he’s simply the best of a bad crop of QB prospects this year. I like Kenny Pickett because he ticks all my boxes for being a really good QB prospect in ANY season.
I also don’t like draft experts…a lot. I understand the fun we (fans) have with mock drafts and evaluations. That’s all good. But the talking heads who take themselves seriously as self-appointed professional “experts” about the draft – gimme a break. I lump them into a low category of grifters that include the likes of palm-readers and members of Congress.
Those two things are converging in this article, as I make the case for Kenny Pickett as a top draft prospect in ANY year, and generally poo-poo the cottage industry of draft prognostication along the way.
As of the writing of this article, the majority of draft evaluations have either Kenny Pickett or Malik Willis as their top QB prospect but for different reasons. Pickett gets the nod for the folks favoring NFL-readiness from Day 1. Willis is the sweetheart of the draftniks who look at dual-threat potential and the always-intriguing-never-identified “high ceiling”. But it seems to me that a decent chunk of the draft-world simply does not like these 2022 quarterbacks overall. Here’s a choice morsel coming from NFL journalist Albert Breer:
“A couple of veteran NFL evaluators told me late in the (Senior Bowl) week that they don’t believe there’s a single NFL starter in this year’s quarterback class. Not everyone was that harsh, but it was unanimous that these quarterbacks aren’t close to last year’s—and most agreed that all five of last year’s first-round signal-callers would’ve been the top guy at the position in the 2022 draft.”
Wow. Okay. Here’s where I’m tempted to ask the “veteran NFL evaluators” how successful their own evaluations have been over the years. Are these the guys like Scott McCloughan who prioritize prospects that “love football” then draft the likes of Josh Doctson and Su’a Cravens in the 1st and 2nd rounds? Because I’m pretty sure that my 16-year old son could put together some draft boards that would have roughly the same success rate as theirs. Outside of evaluating things like arm-strength, accuracy, footwork and mechanics, the NFL QB evaluators have nothing but fairytales and myths to justify their paychecks and act like they are doing things you and I cannot.
Well, I’m taking them to task today, and proving that I can sound credible in my evaluations AND be just as wrong as they are. I maintain that when it is all said and done, Kenny Pickett will be as successful, if not more, than ANY of the 5 first-round quarterbacks drafted last season. And I hope to heaven that will be here in Washington. So here goes:
My 3 Smell-Tests
Outside of the basic production numbers that a quarterback compiles, there are three of basic smell-tests that I like to apply to quarterback prospects. Take these as a package and not as order of importance. First is number of pass attempts in college game situations. Second is the system they played in and coaching they received. Third is how they performed in their “biggest” games. So, let’s run Kenny Pickett through the Paul Francis smell-tests and take a whiff:
- Number of pass attempts in college game situations.
Why is this important to me? Because the quarterback position is primarily a cerebral position. A prospect that has all the physical talent in the world, but lacks head talent, will crap out of the NFL quickly. However, a prospect with head talent but is limited in physical talent can often stick around and carve out a career of some kind. The quarterback has to process trillions of bits of information in split-second scenarios before he gets his head ripped off by highly trained assaulters. The flight-or-fight responses that get activated in the reptilian part of the brain under these conditions is very real. All of that subconscious activity needs to be subdued, so that the prefrontal cortex (the logical decision-making part of the brain) can process what is happening on all levels of the field. How do you get good at processing all of this? There is only one way to do that – game reps. This is why number of pass attempts is such a big deal for me. The number of times that a QB dropped back and experienced those processing conditions represents an invaluable opportunity to train those reflexes and responses.
I LOVE that Kenny Pickett has 1674 pass attempts in college. That’s 1674 opportunities to process defensive alignments, pass rushes, routes and receivers under real game conditions. That number of game reps blows away other comparable QBs from the first round in the last couple of years:
Trevor Lawrence – 1138
Zach Wilson – 837
Justin Fields – 618
Trey Lance – 318
Mac Jones – 556
Joe Burrow – 945
Justin Herbert – 1293
Tua Tagovailoa – 684
Jordan Love – 1125
(Bonus Throw-In) Dwayne Haskins – 590
Do you think it’s a coincidence that a less-heralded Justin Herbert was able to step in his rookie year and play like a Top-10 veteran? It’s not. It makes sense that he’s already lapped Tua Tagovailoa, who was drafted ahead of him, given he had almost twice as many game reps to build on. For a position that gets better with age, maturity and experience are key for NFL quarterbacks due to all the factors that I listed above. It is easy to see why Kenny Pickett tops the list for draft evaluators that value for “NFL-readiness”, and I agree. Especially for our Washington Commanders who NEED a first-round quarterback to be able to step in immediately. Pickett, like Herbert, will benefit immensely from the game reps he already has under his belt. And in my unprofessional opinion, I think Pickett is going to be Herbert-good.
System and Coaching
It’s all too easy for premiere college quarterbacks at premiere programs to come out with inflated production numbers. This is enabled by college coaches who employ gimmicky offensive systems that simply leverage the advantage they have against most opponents in the form of superior athletes. In a nutshell, you end up having top prospects come out who don’t actually know how to run an actual NFL-style offensive system that requires comprehension of alignments and progressions to find the open man. Not that we know about that in Washington (*COUGH* Dwayne Haskins *COUGH*). In the NFL, the relative advantage of “we are just faster and stronger than you wimps” disappears, and a QB has to effectively run offense against equal talent.
Kenny Pickett’s big production came in his last season, when he threw for an eye-popping 4319 yards, 42 touchdowns and 7 interceptions, and a 67% completion percentage. This came from an offensive system developed by Mark Whipple, who was Pickett’s offensive coordinator at Pittsburgh for the last 3 seasons. There are a couple things I really like about Whipple and his offense. First, Mark Whipple comes with NFL coaching experience. From 2004-2006 he was a quarterbacks coach with the Steelers working with young Ben Roethlisberger. He also spent time with the Philadelphia Eagles and Cleveland Browns as an offensive assistant and quarterbacks coach. So, the man knows the NFL and has a sense of what it’s going to take for a QB to succeed in the pros. Second, Whipple’s offense employs NFL-style elements. Here’s an insightful quote from Andrew Ford, who played quarterback for Whipple at UMass and now works for the Arizona Cardinals:
“(Whipple has) kind of adapted his system each and every year…most of the time he’s leaned toward a pro style guy, but the way college football is trending he’s adapted the system to also benefit running quarterbacks. Really it is leadership and a guy that can think at a high level. He puts a lot on the quarterback. It’s not just a one read and take off and run system. There’s four or five options on every single play. You go into a game where there’s a couple different run plays called at the line, and it’ll be on the quarterback to check into the right one. He does a really good job of teaching it and not making it so complex. He gives you the opportunity where the more you can handle the more he’ll put on the plate.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m hearing all the right buzz-words: Pro-style. Think at a high level. Four or five options. Call at the line. Check into the right one. Handle more. Basically, those 1674 pass attempts involved ALOT of processing at the line of scrimmage. Analyzing what the defense is showing and then making the right adjustment is precisely what an NFL-level quarterback needs to be able to do. This is perhaps the biggest difference, for me, between Kenny Pickett and Malik Willis.
But it’s also why I give Pickett a step up on other players like Justin Fields or Trey Lance. Those prospects were worth trading up for in the eyes of professional talent evaluators, but Kenny Pickett is behind them? Why? I don’t see it. Kenny Pickett is going to be winning games next season in the NFL while Fields and Lance (and definitely Willis) are going to be still learning how to manage pre-snap reads and what to do in a pocket. If you like the elite athleticism that Fields, Lance and Willis bring, and you are developing a system to take advantage of that, then right on. The Ravens have won plenty of games doing that with Lamar Jackson. But that’s hardly a sure-fire shot in the NFL these days, and we see teams running less RPO/pistol offenses since it’s hey-day of 2012. It’s still around as a wrinkle, but you don’t draft high first round prospects for wrinkles. You draft them to run pro-style meat-and-potatoes passing offense.
Performing Against Biggest Opponents
Unlike the NFL, the competitive college landscape is filled with great extremes. The difference between the best college teams and the worst college teams is far steeper than what we see in the pros, where even the most “awful” teams are still talented enough to beat a “better” opponent on any given Sunday (see: WFT vs. Tampa Bay last season). The 63-0 beatdown that your premiere program laid onto East Chattanooga Technical College means nothing. How did you do against equal or better competition? How did you step up in games and moments where the lights were brightest? For me this says something about your “it” factor, and your capacity to rise to the occasion as opposed to shrink. So, how did Kenny Pickett fare?
Let me begin by noting that the Pittsburgh Panthers are not an elite college football program. In most seasons, the Panthers are an ACC also-ran. This is an important thing to highlight because many top quaerterback prospects coming from blue-chip programs have this question hanging over them: Are they really good, or did they just benefit from elite players around them? But the Panthers won the 2021 ACC championship because of Kenny Pickett. He elevated the team around him, not vice-versa.
Here are my selections for some key “big games” for Kenny Pickett this past season.
- Away vs. Tennessee, Sept 11th – In the second game of the season, Pittsburgh is playing on the road in Knoxville. While the Volunteers would not end up having a great season overall, keep context in mind. At this point, the Panthers are an unranked team playing an SEC opponent in front of a hostile crowd twice the size of what they are used to at home (82,000!) in a nationally televised game. Pickett stepped up with a tidy 24/36, 285 yard, 2 touchdown passing performance with no turnovers, and a rushing TD in victory.
- Home vs. North Carolina, Nov 11th – This was a big game because of the build-up around Kenny Picket versus Sam Howell. This was also a nationally televised game with plenty of NFL scouts in the house to see two of the nation’s best quarterback prospects battle it out – and both guys knew it. Picket would go off for 346 yards and 3 touchdowns (with 1 interceptions), including a game-clinching touchdown pass in overtime.
- ACC Championship Game vs. Wake Forest – With everything on the line, the 15th ranked Panthers took on the 16th ranked Deacons at a “neutral” venue in Wake Forest’s backyard. After a tight first quarter, the Panthers would proceed to a 45-21 blowout win. Pickett had a solid showing in a game that didn’t require many heroics from him, going 20-33 for 253 yards and 2 passing touchdowns. But Pickett provided arguably the highlight of the year with an epic fake-slide touchdown run that forced the NCAA to revise its rules. I love the moxie that Pickett showed to pull that off on the biggest stage of his career. Serious PROPS.
Even the 2 losses for the Panthers in 2021 still featured great offensive output from Pickett in games where the defense let the team down. He threw for 6 TDs in a loss to Western Michigan, and 519 yards/3 TDs (with 2 INTs) in a loss against Miami. Certainly, the Panthers’ ACC schedule was not the bruising gauntlet that one might face in the SEC or the Big10. But you know what they say – you can only play against the opponents in front of you. And Kenny Pickett stepped up against the biggest ones he had in the biggest moments.
So What’s Not To Like?
I don’t know. You tell me. How in the world is Pickett clearly worse than any of the 5 first-rounders last year? The raw scouting reports tell me that he’s 6’3’’, 220 pounds and athletic enough to run past LBs and DBs. His highlight reels show me that he throws from the pocket with solid mechanics AND throws on the run with all the goofy arm-angles we’ve come to love from Patrick Mahomes. The scouts tell me he has the arm strength to make throws on all three levels. So…what’s not to like?
But He Only Had One Really Good Year? So did Joe Burrow. So did Mac Jones. So did Zach Wilson. So did countless other quarterbacks who have been drafted pretty high in the first round. For me, looking into the narrative behind his “one really good year” actually only makes me like him better. Mark Whipple arrived in Pittsburgh in 2019 and started working with Kenny Pickett. Remember that Whipple is bringing pro-style elements and expectations along with him. In 2019 and 2020, Whipple and Pickett built rapport. Whipple expected Pickett to learn the position and the plays without using gimmicky schematic shortcuts. Given the opportunity to do so, Pickett stepped up, learned, grew and then thrived in 2021. This tells me that Pickett is teachable and dedicated to his craft. Far from being a red flag, the story of how Pickett got to his “one really good” year is a plus for me.
Hand Size? Yeah, this was apparently really a thing at the Senior Bowl. I think one scout also didn’t like his haircut.
Let me conclude with a quote from Sonny Weaver Jr., one of the great all-time imaginary GMs in football. (Hey, we are draft prognosticating here…we are firmly in the imaginary world).
We need to find out what Bo Callahan’s “something” is. Then figure out if it matters or not. All right? Figure out if it’s something we can live with.
For those of us who saw the movie Draft Day, you may recall that Bo Callahan was the sure-fire can’t-miss #1 draft and quarterback prospect. But Browns GM Sonny Weaver Jr. was convinced there had to be some problem with him. The work of a GM is to figure out what that “something” is, and then determine if you still can win with it. He goes on to cite the skepticism around Joe Montana’s size, or whether John Elway’s arm was actually TOO strong to throw effective touch passes, or whether Peyton Manning’s lack of arm strength would inhibit him as a pro.
So what’s the “something” with Kenny Pickett? Do we have to Sonny Weaver the situation? I admit, I’m not deep enough in the draft game to try to overanalyze what the “something” is. But I don’t see anything we can’t live with, or win with, in Washington. And I sure as heck don’t see “something” that tells me Kenny Pickett would have been the 6th quarterback taken last year, if we knew then what we know now.
But I know this. If Kenny Pickett is starting in Washington in 2022, that just might be enough for me to get a Commanders jersey with his name and number on that back. And I KNOW that is “something” that the Washington-powers-that-be can definitely live with.