One game into the Pittsburgh Steelers’ regular season and there’s already a social media story. This time, it involved WR George Pickens. Following the offense’s dismal performance in Sunday’s 30-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, one in which Pickens saw little downfield action, one Twitter follower noticed Pickens appear to like an anti-Kenny Pickett comment on Instagram.
On Pickens’ Instagram page, one IG user posted on his page “nobody to get that man the ball tho,” a reference to his quarterback.
The post received four likes, one of them showing to be from Pickens’ account. Here’s a screenshot I took of the comment’s like that shows Pickens’ verified handle.
Speaking to reporters today, after declining to talk with them yesterday, Pickens said he wasn’t aware of the story.
“I seen that,” he told The Trib’s Chris Adamski. “My comments aren’t even on my Instagram. So somebody must’ve screenshotted or @’d themself. You can’t even tag me. I don’t even have no comments on my Instagram.”
While it’s a little hard to tell exactly what Pickens is saying here — he might be right that you can’t tag him — comments are definitely allowed on his page. His Instagram is littered with them. And he certainly has the ability to like a comment as any Instagram user does. By all appearances, that was his account that liked it, too. So what Pickens is saying based on all the evidence do not match.
Now, it’s possible that Pickens inadvertently liked the comment while scrolling through. Or perhaps there’s some other explanation. But he certainly seemed frustrated by yesterday’s loss, catching five short passes and only getting targeted deep once (an incompletion out of the end zone). But what Pickens told reporters isn’t going to lessen any suspicion that it was him liking the post.
As of now, the post the comment was made on is still up, though in my scrolling through, I’m unable to find the original comment that contained Pickens’ supposed like. Perhaps it’s been buried under all the other comments or perhaps it’s been deleted.
As the old adage goes, winning cures everything. If Pittsburgh can come out Monday night and beat the Cleveland Browns, these types of stories go away. But the Steelers will have to win first for that to happen. Or else the frustration will continue to mount.
