If you’re a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, there’s a good chance you’ve come across a highlight reel of WR George Pickens putting defensive backs on their butts. It’s one of his go-to moves and not really something you see much. It was impressive as a rookie, as were many things about his first year. But wide receivers coach Frisman Jackson knows that won’t continue by itself.
“He became a YouTube phenomenon because he was catching some guys off guard”, Jackson told Kevin Clark for The Ringer about Pickens. “But I told him, ‘You’re not going to catch many people off guard [this year]. People know what move you’re going to try to do’”.
Novelty and rarity are frequently important elements of success in competitive sports. If your moves are predictable, they are going to be countered successfully at a higher rate. Execution will only take you so far without the element of the unexpected.
That applies to all elements of his game, even if he admits that he is not necessarily a “route guy”. “I just feel like if you up your catch radius and you boost your hands, that will kind of take care of everything”, he told Clark.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t working on it. Patrick Peterson didn’t go up against him last year, but the veteran cornerback is seeing the improvement he’s been making in action, including during the first few days of training camp. He told Clark of a route on which the receiver “gave me a little wiggle” that threw him off.
Adding those nuances to his game will be critical to his continued development, and he has acknowledged it is an area of focus for him this offseason. His quarterback, Kenny Pickett, has gone out of his way to mention it multiple times during interviews over the past few months as well.
Clark writes that offensive coordinator Matt Canada is excited about the variety of routes he can build off Pickens’ success on go routes, which was his specialty as a rookie, and has told the receiver to “work on his curls, slants, bang 8s, and comebacks”.
While he was never a one-trick pony, it’s still vital for him to continue to evolve his game, as Jackson sees it. He wants his young charge to be prepared for when his success on go routes is so apparent that teams begin taking it away, and what the Steelers do with him in response.
And he’s very much game for it, talking about his focus on improving his run after the catch, anticipating a higher percentage of shorter passes that he hopes will give him the opportunity to use his speed and athleticism to move with the ball in his hands.
If he truly believes he is the best receiver in the game, as he also said in this interview, then he’d better make sure that he has as many weapons in his arsenal as possible. Even talent as elite as he seems to possess will need help once in a while. There are pretty good defensive backs out there. Even Antonio Brown lost the occasional matchup, and crazy as he was, nobody worked harder than him.
