In the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Saturday home win against the Cincinnati Bengals, WR George Pickens had a career game as the former second-round draft out of Georgia registered four catches for 195 yards and two touchdowns on six total targets. Three of those four catches were the team’s only three explosive plays in the game, and each one was great in its own unique way.
During the most recent episode of his podcast, former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who had been critical of Pickens for his play in the team’s Week 16 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, made sure to acknowledge the bounce-back game that Pickens had on Saturday against the Bengals.
“Just a total game,” Roethlisberger said of Pickens’ showing against the Bengals on Saturday. “Like, you know, right here [in my notes]. Why would you ever leave him one-on-one? He catches the ball later in the game, I think on third and long, Mason [Rudolph] throws a great ball; now that one was a great ball down the sideline to George for a touchdown. How do you leave that guy one-on-one? How do you not have someone over the top like for the guy that’s that good?”
Roethlisberger asked a great question there and only the Bengals coaching staff can truly answer it. To make matters worse for Cincinnati, that second touchdown pass from QB Mason Rudolph to Pickens that Roethlisberger referenced came against Bengals rookie CB DJ Turner.
Pickens, on that particular play, did a nice job of getting late separation from Turner via a subtle use of his right arm. That move kind of reminds you of what former Steelers WR Antonio Brown used to do against cornerbacks once he had them stacked on the outside. You can see a clip of that below.
Earlier in the show, Roethlisberger once again agreed that the criticism that Pickens received all of last week was essentially warranted, which it was.
“Like, that was, I’d say, everything we had talked about in terms of the Steeler way,” Roethlisberger said on his latest podcast episode. “So, you know, it is what it is. But yeah, I think that sometimes as a team, you get the media, players, all these people come up and against you, and it’s like, we gotta go out and just play and perform. And I think that’s what they did. I mean, that was a total team win.”
It was indeed a total team win for the Steelers, and it was also indeed a great bounce-back game for Pickens. It will now be interesting to see if he can keep himself in the more positive spotlight these final two weeks of the regular season. He’s certainly talented enough to do just that, and Saturday’s performance against the Bengals once again showed that he can be a complete wide receiver and one of the best in the NFL.
You can watch the entire latest episode of the ‘Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger’ podcast below:
