2022 NFL redraft ranks 49ers’ Brock Purdy over Steelers’ Kenny Pickett

Pittsburgh Steelers rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett received some offseason bulletin-board material on Tuesday. 

ESPN NFL Nation reporters asked to re-do the first two rounds of the 2022 draft ranked San Francisco 49ers signal-caller Brock Purdy ahead of Pickett. They said that Purdy should’ve gone off the board at pick No. 4 to the New York Jets, while Pickett fell to the New Orleans Saints and selection No. 16 in this exercise. 

“Purdy was ‘Mr. Irrelevant’ in the real draft, but he’d be very relevant to the Jets,” ESPN’s Rich Cimini wrote. “He’d look good in Gotham, especially if they fail to land veterans Aaron Rodgers (of the Green Bay Packers) or Derek Carr (of the Las Vegas Raiders) this offseason.” 

Meanwhile, Katherine Terrell of ESPN pointed out that Pickett “improved down the stretch” of his debut season. 

A 49ers team ready to compete for a championship this fall had no other choice than to turn to Purdy, the last pick of the actual 2022 draft, on Dec. 4 after both Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo were lost to season-ending injuries. The 23-year-old went a perfect 5-0 as a starter in regular-season play and completed 67.1% of his total pass attempts for 1,374 yards with 13 touchdowns and four interceptions. 

Per ESPN stats, his 65.4 total QBR would’ve been the league’s fifth-best mark for that category had he been among eligible players. 

Pickett, meanwhile, began the campaign beneath veteran Mitchell Trubisky on the depth chart for a Steelers club that hit a figurative reset button at the position following the retirement of future Hall of Famer Ben Roethlisberger. 

The first-round pick from last year’s draft finished 33rd out of 34 eligible quarterbacks with a 76.7 passer rating but was 20th out of 31 players with a 51.6 total QBR. He threw seven touchdown passes and nine interceptions, but only one of those picks occurred after Week 8.

Pickett heads into the offseason as Pittsburgh’s undisputed QB1, while Purdy’s future with San Francisco and for 2023, in general, is up in the air. 

Purdy suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow in the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 29 and will be sidelined for at least six months. He’ll temporarily lose his job to Lance this spring, although it’s thought Lance is currently likely the favorite among the two to serve as San Francisco’s Week 1 starter this coming September. 

With no way of knowing so early in the process how Purdy will respond to going under the knife, ranking him ahead of Pickett feels like a slight directed toward the Pittsburgh Panthers product.