The last two games, Pittsburgh Steelers WR George Pickens has a grand total of three catches for 21 yards and a touchdown. If you look at just this game against the Tennessee Titans, Pickens had just two receptions on five targets for minus-one yard. For most receivers in the NFL, that would be considered a bad day at the office. For Pickens, who was looking like an alpha wide receiver in the making, that type of game can be a gut punch to the momentum you’ve been building during a promising sophomore season.
QB Kenny Pickett mentioned last week that Pittsburgh needed to try and move Pickens around in the formation to give him better matchups and keep defenses from double-teaming him in attempting to take him out of the game. Pickett made the same remark following the Steelers’ 20-16 win in his post-game press conference tonight but also sung Pickens’ praises for all that he is doing to help the offense outside of catching passes and scoring touchdowns.
“He’s gonna get doubled a lot and that’s why you see Diontae [Johnson] get singled up and Diontae is doing a great job on the other side,” Pickett said via video from the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “Credit to him, he takes two guys. The run game is opening up because of him. There’s a lot of things that he’s not getting credit for right now in the stat sheet, but he is helping us win football games. He’s helping us have a lot of successful plays, so you definitely wanna reward him.”
Pickens has definitely underwhelmed relative to expectations the last two weeks, having had 27 receptions for 500 yards and two touchdowns going into the Jaguars game. He’s since seen opposing defenses throw the kitchen sink at him, using double teams in the form of Cover 2 cloud coverage and bracket coverage looks to prevent Pickens from single-handedly beat them. The results have been effective thus far, but all that attention that defenses are devoting to Pickens has helped Johnson, the fifth-year veteran seeing more one-on-ones while enjoying strong back-to-back games. The running game has also benefitted as less defenders are stacking the box as Pickens draws attention, opening things up for Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren.
Pickett and Pickens missed a potential touchdown in this game, but Pickett isn’t deterred in trying to get Pickens more involved and reward him for what he’s doing that doesn’t get recorded in the box score.
“I wish we hit that one in the red zone on the slot fade, but, you know, continue to try and get him the football as many ways as we can, but just definitely want to appreciate him for what he does to the defenses that opens up everything else,” Pickett said.
