Steelers comparison: Where does Kenny Pickett’s rookie season rank?

The Steelers will move forward with Kenny Pickett at quarterback, and here is a comparison of what his rookie season looked like compared to other quarterbacks.

The Steelers seemingly have their quarterback of the future in Kenny Pickett. While the start of his career was less than ideal, he did improve as the season progressed. Now, he is set to be the guy in Pittsburgh for the foreseeable future.

While rookie seasons don’t guarantee long-term success or struggles, I wanted to take some time and compare Pickett’s season as a passer to other rookie starters. While rookie stats aren’t the only way to judge a player’s success, I was curious how Pickett would compare to the plethora of other quarterbacks who have started as rookies.

How I made this study for the Steelers

This study only looks at rookie-year passing stats from quarterbacks, as I wasn’t overly concerned with what the rushing stats would look like. These stats include the basic completion percentages, yards, scores, and interceptions. As well, I looked at some other stats such as adjusted yards per pass attempt and QBR to see just where Pickett fell in at. I broke a lot of this down over Twitter.

To find a sample size of quarterbacks, I looked at every rookie quarterback that started at least eight games in their first season. From there, I averaged out every quarterback’s stats as if they started 12 games so their stats could be best compared to Pickett. 34 quarterbacks were examined here, and these were the final results.

Pickett was below average with his passing numbers

Of the basic passing numbers, Pickett didn’t do well as a rookie. The lone stat he was good with was his completion percentage, as he came in 13th overall, sandwiched between Carson Wentz and Baker Mayfield.

Pickett was the 24th-best passer in terms of passing yards. Frankly, this isn’t a surprising stat to me, as Pickett was regularly having lackluster passing totals. The offense also focused on the run game more in the second half of the season, which limited those passing numbers. That said, it was a poor showing there.

His touchdowns were also a bad outing. He was tied for last with fellow Steelers quarterback Mitch Trubisky. Interceptions were a better number, as he had the 10th fewest interceptions of the quarterbacks looked at.

The more advanced stats were a mix for Steelers

One of the more important passing stats is adjusted net yards per attempt. This is a pretty complete overview of the success of a passing game, as it weighs in passing yards, touchdowns, and interceptions and weighs it against attempts. Typically, a successful passing game wants to be above a 6.0.

Pickett had a below-average score of 5.5 here, and overall, it was good for only the 26th best in this study. That is one area that Pickett needs to improve upon from years one to two. Wentz once again was close to Pickett (he registered a 5.7).

While people have a tendency to look past just stat tracking (and for a fair reason), AY/A has some decent correlation with long-term success. The five highest numbers all mostly hit, with Dak Prescott, Robert Griffen, Russell Wilson, Justin Herbert, and Baker Mayfield all making up that list. Griffen was limited due to his injury status as a rookie, and while Mayfield seems like the worst of those top five, his story isn’t done yet (although he certainly looks like the outlier).

Meanwhile, the bottom five in this category is a whose who of poor quarterbacks. In order, the bottom five are DeShone Kizer, Josh Rosen, Blake Bortles, Trevor Lawrence, and Zach Wilson. Of those five players, Lawrence is the only one with much hope at this point. It certainly isn’t great that Pickett is closer to those names than toward the top.

Who does Pickett best compare to?

Based on this study alone, Wentz has to be the closest comparison from a statistical perspective. Watching their games you see two slightly different players, but both had good composure and at times looked elite as rookies. Wentz has gone on to be a very middling player after a short period of dominance. We obviously don’t know what is in store for Pickett.

Other names that had similar stat lines overall were Mike Glennon and Brandon Weeden. Both had more inflated touchdown and interception numbers while positing similar AY/A numbers (Glennon a 6.2 and Weeden a 5.6 respectively). He certainly didn’t look like Joe Burrow as a rookie despite the numerous comparisons.

To be fair, rookie stats aren’t the only indicator of a player’s chances long-term. Famously, Josh Allen was pretty bad as a rookie due to his horrible mechanics and accuracy. That said, everyone knew that about him coming out of school. It wasn’t a surprise to see him struggle there, and once he improved, he became the dynamic player that he is.

Pickett isn’t Allen. He is a far more refined player as a rookie than Allen was. That said, he also lacks the upside that the Bills invested in when they took Allen. No one was surprised to see Allen struggle early on, as he was a project. Pickett wasn’t seen in that light, making these numbers even less desirable.

If you want to lump these issues into a poor scheme or a bad line, please spare me. Pickett didn’t inherit a great offense, but most modern rookies don’t. Pickett has a fair amount of critiques as a rookie. That doesn’t mean he won’t get better, but these numbers here are less than ideal.

I’m curious about what you all think. Let me reiterate, I don’t think Pickett is the same player as Weeden or Glennon, or even Wentz based purely on his rookie stats. That said, I did come away disappointed with his overall rookie numbers when compared to other rookie statistics.