Kenny Pickett breaks down the biggest way Peyton, Eli Manning helped him
Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett arrived at the Manning Passing Academy for the first time in 2019 eager to learn. Fresh off of his first season as the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Panthers, Pickett was relatively unknown at the time but hoped to soak up lessons from Peyton and Eli Manning to take the next step forward in his college career.
He entered the experience with the goal to become more efficient in how he watched film, picking the brains of the two Super Bowl champions. After spending two years at the Manning Passing Academy, Pickett completely changed his approach to the way he studies.
“I think how broad I was watching film before that,” he said on the Green Light with Chris Long podcast. “It’s almost like you’re watching film just to watch it. You’re watching so many clips and cuts. My big thing was, when I went in there, I was like, ‘how do you guys streamline it?’ There’s so much that goes into a game plan. Defenses have so many things.
“When I saw how regimented it was and the cut ups — the third down breakdown, the red zone breakdown, the two-minute — all that stuff and how they kept kind of three things in their head and made everything else, as long as you saw it on tape a couple of times, you’re like, ‘I’m not gonna put too much stock into it. If I see it, I’ve seen it before on tape and I’ll just go play. But this is (the defense’s) bread and butter and I’m ready for the adjustments if they throw that at me.’ That was my big thing.”
Coming off of his second year at the Manning Passing Academy, Pickett saw a massive uptick in his production as a senior. He more than tripled the amount of touchdowns he threw, going from 13 to 42. He also completed a career-best 67.2% of his passes while throwing for 4,319 yards and seven interceptions.
Pickett won ACC Player of the Year that season and finished third in the Heisman voting in leading the Panthers to a Peach Bowl appearance. That was enough for the Steelers to take him as the only quarterback in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, keeping him home in the city.
Pickett took over as the Steelers’ starter by Week 5 of his rookie season. Although he started off slow with eight interceptions in his first five games, he came on over the back half of the year to lead Pittsburgh to a 5-0 record to close out the year. He ended the year with 2,404 yards passing, seven touchdowns, and nine interceptions.
As Pickett hopes to carry that momentum over into his second NFL season, he’ll approach it with confidence knowing what he learned in college from the Manning brothers.
“Sophomore year of college, I would go in with so many things that I would think too much,” he said. “Having that experience of talking to Peyton and Eli and how to streamline the film study really helped me.”