The Steelers are now back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, facing down a long regular season that looks a lot more promising given how things have gone leading up to it. Finishing just above .500 last year, they anticipate being able to compete with any team in the league this season with second-year QB Kenny Pickett leading the way.
They’ve done a great deal to address what they identified as their shortcomings during the offseason, which included addressing the offensive and defensive lines as well as the secondary and the inside linebacker room, which is nearly entirely different from last year. The results have been positive so far.
Even well into the regular season and beyond, there are going to be plenty of questions that need answered. When will the core rookies get to play, or even start? Is the depth sufficient where they upgraded? Can they stand toe-to-toe with the Bengals and the other top teams in the league? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout the season, as we have for many years.
Question: Is WR George Pickens primed to feast against the Packers’ secondary?
By no means have the Packers exhibited a bad passing defense so far this season. At the same time, they have had a pretty soft schedule without a ton of complete passing offenses to go against. Even when they played against the Minnesota Vikings, it was in the game in which Kirk Cousins was injured.
And they just traded Rasul Douglas. And they might not have Jaire Alexander available for Sunday’s game, so they could potentially be without their top two cornerbacks from a couple of weeks ago. That’s not going to help any.
They would be starting with Carrington Valentine, a seventh-round rookie, and Keisean Nixon, who prior to this season had primarily been a return man, but who has since earned/inherited a larger role. Especially if Alexander doesn’t play, there will be opportunities for receivers to make plays.
Enter George Pickens, perhaps the most explosive wide receiver outside of Antonio Brown that the Steelers have had since Martavis Bryant at his peak. He is coming off of an awful game in which he only caught two passes for minus-one yard and was unable to complete another target for a fairly routine touchdown because he failed to keep his second foot inbounds.
You already know the rest of the backstory to all that, so the question is this: how does he respond? Will he go off against the Packers with another 100-yard game? He already has three of them this year, including one in Diontae Johnson’s first game back from injury, so it’s not as though he can’t put up numbers unless he’s the sole focus.
Of course, Pickens’ ability to have a big game is not fully in his control. He can get open all day but the ball still has to go his way. That has been part of the issue at times, and one of the reasons his frustrations at times have seeped out of him and become visible on the field. One thing of which there is no doubt is that he has the talent to go off at any moment, and facing a potentially depleted secondary would seem a good time to do that, especially coming off the week he’s had. He should be eager to let his play speak for him again.
