The beautiful thing about sports is that you can answer a lot of questions and cut out a lot of nonsense by getting back on the field. For the past week, the national sports media has been hammering home their preferred talking points surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers and WR George Pickens, most of whom have no insider perspective either into the player or the organization.
Head coach Mike Tomlin called Pickens’ frustrations “a pebble in my shoe” in terms of the significance of the problem that it presents. A man who’s been in the locker room before with him agrees that it’s not a significant issue.
“I think right now it’s a small deal”, former Steelers CB Bryant McFadden told Ron Cook and Joe Starkey yesterday on 93.7 The Fan. He explained that Pickens is one of their top players who is young and maturing.
“At some point in time, he has to understand that he might not be the focal point of the offense week in and week out”, McFadden said. “But I’m with George Pickens with regard to the lack of targets he has seen. I think it’s imperative to get him more involved”.
Now, did Tomlin downplay matters when he spoke to the media about it? That’s almost assuredly the case just about every time any kind of issue arises, big or small. “That’s a Mike Tomlin way to handle a presser”, McFadden said, who’s seen this show before—and so has Tomlin, which is what gives him confidence that his former head coach knows what he’s doing and saying.
“He’s gonna make sure he emphasizes the little things” in private settings, McFadden said regarding Tomlin’s handling of Pickens. “He’s not going to give it more attention, and that’s his way of keeping distractions to a minimum”. And he believes there were lessons to be learned in handling Antonio Brown for many years.
“I think going through that situation for Mike Tomlin, seeing that TV show before, he understands and knows how to attack this small episode”, he said, “because he’s been through a total TV series of drama with a former wide receiver in Antonio Brown”.
I don’t think I really need to elaborate on that. We generally try to avoid anything that Brown does or says at this point unless it directly involves football or legal matters. He’s more than made a nuisance of himself, and time has only further vindicated Tomlin with regard to how he handled the receiver’s massive ego and instability.
Pickens isn’t anywhere near that territory—I’m not sure there are many in the history of the NFL who have ever been in that ballpark—but he doesn’t need to be. McFadden’s point is that Tomlin’s weathered storms far worse than this. This is the shallow end of the pool for him.
