Kenny Pickett was a good, not great, college quarterback with the Pittsburgh Panthers. Predictably, once Pickett went to the NFL, he went from good to terrible once an organization, namely the Pittsburgh Steelers, tried (and failed) to anoint him as their new franchise quarterback. Now, he's a 28-year-old journeyman already on his fourth team in five seasons, the Carolina Panthers.
Life comes at you fast, dearest readers.
Pickett's fall from momentary grace has been so stark that he is now starting the Hall of Fame Game for the Panthers. This, to be clear, is not good news. With all due respect to guys fighting for their NFL livelihoods in the preseason, most players who appear in the annual Hall of Fame Game are fringe-of-roster dudes who likely
won't make the final 53-man regular-season roster for their respective team. It's even worse when you're a veteran quarterback like Pickett because most teams do not want to give meaningless and potentially dangerous snaps to quarterbacks they care about in what is an extra exhibition. Pickett, for one, might also be in a competition with Haynes King for his job.
Someone relay this explanation to Pitt, which celebrated Pickett starting the exhibition with an unnecessary and unironic social media graphic about the news:
Our guy. pic.twitter.com/ZDLMuyPs5n
— Pitt Panthers (@Pitt_ATHLETICS) August 6, 2026
Some think the graphic was in reference to a pretty laughable graphic Penn State once made about a former Nittany Lion appearing in almost every Super Bowl so far, but even that feels like a stretch:
🤝 https://t.co/nRcJ7aLJqK pic.twitter.com/nPTWXxrDVp
— Matt Fortuna (@Matt_Fortuna) August 6, 2026
Let's not beat around the bush. Pickett is probably safe from getting cut by the Panthers by virtue of a one-year, fully guaranteed $4 million contract. It's not like Carolina has committed much to the signal-caller. They can move on from him at the end of the season without much pain. No harm, no foul. At the same time, though, if Pickett plays badly enough in preseason, it stands to reason that the Panthers could bite the bullet in favor of King and still release him. It's not as if Pickett has earned any reasonable benefit of the doubt.
The mere fact that he's playing in the Hall of Fame Game alone should be enough to raise some eyebrows about how much job security he really has.
Who were Kenny Pickett's three other NFL teams?
Pickett has played for the Steelers, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Las Vegas Raiders.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Pitt doesn’t seem to know Kenny Pickett starting Hall of Fame Game is bad, actually
