Report: The Philadelphia Eagles Trade for Kenny Pickett: What a Lesson on Draft NFL Preparation.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ trade for quarterback Kenny Pickett could be taken as a lesson in NFL draft preparation. The Eagles received the former Pittsburgh starter by sliding 22 spots in April’s upcoming draft (No. 98 at the end of the third round to No. 120 in the fourth round), along with a 2025 seventh-round pick.

Rewind to the 2022 summer, and the Eagles weren’t totally sold on Jalen Hurts as the long-term starter before what turned out to be his breakout season. The management had grown comfortable with the concept of another campaign to define where Hurts truly was in his growth as a young QB, however.

The only conceivable tidal change at the time would have been a “home run,” as detailed to SI.com’s Eagles Today by team sources at the time. That description was confined to enticing the beleaguered Deshaun Watson to consider Philadelphia, or the organization’s “white whale,” Russell Wilson, to think about the City of Brotherly Love during his Seattle escape plan.

Neither veteran star considered the Eagles with Watson, who shared the same offseason QB coach with Hurts at the time, not wanting to be the one limiting his friend’s opportunity, according to an NFL source.

Hindsight says it’s better to be lucky than excellent, as a superb supporting cast headed by a draft-night deal for standout receiver A.J. Brown helped Hurts evolve into the runner-up for MVP Patrick Mahomes in the 2002 season.

Watson, however, has never been the same as he was in Houston after pre-sexual assault claims. At the same time, Wilson showed himself to be a quickly failing player in Denver who will try to give it one more shot in Pittsburgh this season as the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to the connection with Pickett and the Steelers.

Pickett started this process as the headliner of a “poor draft class” at QB in 2022 and the only one picked in the first round, at No. 20 overall to the Steelers.

The Eagles’ due diligence on Pickett was never about the first round after a stunning run to the postseason in Nick Sirianni’s first season as head coach. Philadelphia was big-game hunting at No. 15 and ultimately hopped over Baltimore at No. 14 to get to Jordan Davis.

Multiple team sources verified that GM Howie Roseman and his personnel department were quite keen on Pickett, however, and surely would have considered him in the second round if others stayed away, maybe intimidated by Pickett’s smaller hands.

Roseman, himself, went out to watch Pickett play at one point, no doubt helped by proximity and a mid-week game, but nevertheless significant.

That second-round scenario never even came close to unfolding, but there’s also another incentive to do the work on players who look to be in no man’s land for an organization’s draft positioning: the future.

You never know when a player you may like might shake loose or be able to be wrenched from their original landing point.

As things went south for Pickett in Pittsburgh, Roseman saw the opportunity to grab a cost-effective backup with 24 games of starting experience for the next two seasons just as Hurts’ enormous agreement started to kick in.

No team has valued the backup QB position more than Philadelphia in recent years, and to get a 25-year-old who happened to love the Eagles growing up in Ocean Township, New Jersey, and was believed by the same organization to be worthy of a late first-round grade three years ago is as practical an end game as the Eagles could have hoped for.