As a wide receiver in the NFL, you naturally have to have a sense of swagger about yourself. You are the one that’s required to make spectacular catches against contested coverage to keep drives alive on offense being the flashy sports car that makes the offense go.
With that sense of swagger and confidence, showboating and celebrating often follows. We’ve seen this with the likes of Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Chase Claypool in the past just to name a few former Steelers receivers.
Current Steelers WR Diontae Johnson talked with the media the other day and was asked about the topic of showboating after making a big play, particularly if he has said anything to teammate WR George Pickens as he has shown to have quite the personality on the football field during his rookie season.
“I mean you kind of let ’em be yourself out there, but you know what I’m saying?” Diontae said on video via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sports YouTube Channel. “It’s a time and place for everything, so you don’t want to do that every single place. Like, we got stuff we gotta do, you know what I’m saying? So, when you keep doing that, we wasting time on the clock, little stuff like that. So, it’s really just annoying in certain situations and like I say, it’s a time and place for everything. So like, I’m not controlling him or anything or like telling them they can’t do it. It’s just like know when to do it. So, that’s really what it is.”
Johnson makes a good point that you have to let Pickens be who he is, but only as long as it doesn’t hurt the team. Pickens is a competitive alpha-type WR that makes the toughest catches look routine against quality defensive backs. He plays the game with a level of fire and passion that can be hard to dial back in intense situations, thus some form of celebration after making a big play for the offense can be understandable.
However, bringing attention to yourself should never affect the team and your chances of winning. A clear example of this was with WR Chase Claypool just two seasons ago while he was still in Pittsburgh, making a catch for a first down as the clock was ticking away at the end of a game against the Minnesota Vikings. Claypool ended up wasting time to do a little celebration rather than rushing the ball back to the LOS to spike it and conserve clock, resulting in precious seconds as the team tried to get back into the game.
George Pickens is the latest Pittsburgh Steelers WR to have more of an outgoing presence on the football field. He’s not like Johnson and Allen Robinson II who are more reserved and go about their business in a more professional manner, but rather a splashy player that makes the crazy catches and will let you know about it. As long as it’s not affecting the game or getting into his own head, Pickens should be ok as Johnson mentioned, always keeping the team first over his own ego.
