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In return for the former Pittsburgh starter and a 2025 seventh-round pick, the Eagles traded down 22 spots in the following April draft (from No. 98 at the end of the third round to No. 120 in the fourth).
The Eagles were not totally certain that Jalen Hurts would be the team’s long-term starter in the 2022 summer prior to what turned out to be his breakout season. However, the organization was used to the notion of holding another campaign to ascertain Hurts’ true position in his growth as a rookie quarterback.
At the time, team insiders who talked to Eagles Today on SI.com said that a “home run” would have been the only meaningful change that could have happened. That description was limited to trying to get the company’s “white whale,” Russell Wilson, also known as the embattled Deshaun Watson, to consider the City of Brotherly Love as a potential destination for his planned departure from Seattle.
An NFL source claims that Hurts’ offseason quarterback coach, Watson, was not open to the idea of either experienced star playing for the Eagles. He wished not to be the one to ruin his friend’s opportunity.
In hindsight, Hurts’ outstanding supporting cast—which included the selection of outstanding receiver A.J. Brown on draft night—aided him in finishing second to MVP Patrick Mahomes in the 2002–02 season. Nevertheless, luck is still preferable to good.
Watson, however, has never gone back to how he was before the pre-sexual assault allegations in Houston. But Wilson’s rapid downturn in Denver proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of his connection with Pickett and the Steelers. This season, Wilson will try to give it another go in Pittsburgh.
The highlight of a quarterbacks’ “poor draft class” in 2022, Pickett was chosen as the sole player in the first round, heading to the Steelers at No. 20 overall.
After a spectacular postseason run in Nick Sirianni’s first season as head coach, the Eagles’ inquiry into Pickett was never centered on the first round. Philadelphia eventually overcame Baltimore at No. 14 to get to Jordan Davis after going big-game hunting at No. 15.
Numerous team sources claim that GM Howie Roseman and his personnel department had great expectations for Pickett. Had others refrained from approaching, maybe frightened away by Pickett’s little stature, they undoubtedly would have given him serious consideration in the following round.
Roseman once went to see Pickett play; this was significant even though it was probably made simpler by the fact that it was a midweek game and near to home.
