Getting chance to stay in Pittsburgh would be 'unbelievable' for former Pitt QB Kenny Pickett

INDIANAPOLIS — In his five years at Pitt, Kenny Pickett spent enough time on the practice fields the Panthers share with the Pittsburgh Steelers that he developed a rapport with coach Mike Tomlin.

He remembers the first time Tomlin plopped down on the benches outside UPMC Rooney Sports Complex and struck up a conversation with the nervous freshman quarterback who was awestruck by Ben Roethlisberger throwing passes to Antonio Brown.

“He would come and sit down and hang out,” Pickett said Wednesday at the NFL Combine. “I wouldn’t leave the bench until he would leave, obviously. I’ve known coach for a long time. It’s been a pretty special relationship.”

It’s one that could dovetail into a coach-quarterback relationship if the Steelers use the No. 20 pick in the NFL Draft on a quarterback and Pickett, perhaps the top passer in his class, somehow slips that far in the opening round.

Stranger things have happened, and Pickett wouldn’t mind if the stars aligned so he wouldn’t have to stray from the place he called his college football home since 2017.

“It would be unbelievable to play in the city I played college football in,” he said.

Pickett said he never took those opportunities to watch Roethlisberger throw passes for granted, never envisioning he one day might be the quarterback replacing him.

“Being able to watch them practice in the spring and summer, as a young kid coming out of college, it shows me how to be a professional, how to practice the right way,” he said. “It’s something I always tell the young guys coming in, to take advantage of it and learn how to be a pro and how to attack every day at practice.”

Although Pickett believes the Steelers have done more advanced scouting work on him than any of the top quarterback prospects in this year’s class, general manager Kevin Colbert said a day earlier that there is no built-in advantage for his organization. Just because the Steelers share the same work space as Pitt doesn’t mean Colbert’s scouts are scrutinizing the Panthers players more closely than those at other schools.

“We never see those players more than (others) because we have scouts all over the country,” Colbert said. “We never take for granted that we know that player better than a player from the west or anything like that. We try to treat them all equally so as not to prejudice our evaluation. Sometimes it’s a little bit harder because people expect us to know more about the Pitt players than maybe the players at USC. Honestly, we really don’t.”

When quarterbacks take the field at Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday night for televised workouts in front of scouts and coaches, Pickett will hope to put the issue of hand size to rest. Pickett delayed having his hands measured at the Senior Bowl so he could have three extra weeks to work on exercises designed to widen the gap from his double-jointed right thumb to his pinky finger.

It might be the most significant measurement taken in Indianapolis since fictional basketball coach Norman Dale determined that the hoops used in the state finals of “Hoosiers” were the same distance from the floor to the rim as the ones in the Hickory gymnasium.

“Whatever it measures, it measures,” Pickett said, smiling. “I’m sure that won’t be the last of it, but it’ll be the last measurement I take of it.”

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Pickett would prefer the numbers he displayed at Pitt as a senior — 4,319 yards, 42 touchdown passes, seven interceptions — carry the conversation on whether he is capable of starting for an NFL franchise. It was his performance over a 13-game body of work that made Pickett a Heisman Trophy finalist and catapulted him into a first-round prospect.

“It wasn’t an overnight thing,” Pickett said. “I didn’t just wake up and all of it fell in my lap. It was years and years of hard work with my teammates and my coaches, and we really went out there and had the season we all expected to have.”

Pickett benefited from an extra season of eligibility because of the coronavirus pandemic, and he will turn 24 years old before he participates in his first NFL training camp.

“My road wasn’t three years,” he said. “I had to do my five years — not six years for people who think I’ve been there for six. I was there for five.”

Pickett smiled again.

“Everyone’s journey is different,” he said. “I always knew I’d end up in this seat here. I’ve had that belief since Day 1.”