Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens displayed poor effort on various plays against the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday, but the biggest one that stood out was Pickens failing to block his man on a would-be Jaylen Warren touchdown. Pickens didn’t take blame for the play during his media session yesterday, and his attitude, along with Pittsburgh’s general locker room culture, has been an issue all season.
On ESPN’s Get Up this morning, former NFL center-turned-head coach Jeff Saturday said that Mike Tomlin isn’t to blame for Pittsburgh’s culture issues, as it should be up to the players to set the culture in the locker room.
“I played for Tony Dungy, who’s in the Hall of Fame. I played for Jim Caldwell. I played for Jim Mora. Coaches do not set culture. The idea, they set a structure in place for coaches, for the system, for the schemes, for all those things. Your culture is created in your locker room,” Saturday said.
He said guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees did a great job setting the culture in their respective locker rooms, and given that he played with Manning in Indianapolis, it was a culture he was familiar with. He added that it’s up to the players to perform up to the standards and culture set in the locker room.
“Coach ain’t buckling up. He ain’t walking between them white lines. He’s trying to give you the best plays, but execution and culture is designed by players,” Saturday said.
Kimberley A. Martin added that Pittsburgh has a “leadership void” on offense, something former Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger said last week. This team has a young offense, but no one is stepping up and taking ownership and establishing how they should act and perform on the field.
Saturday has an interesting perspective as a former player and interim coach with the Colts last season; he would see from both sides about how a locker room should run. It’s not fair to say Tomlin is responsible for Pickens loafing on multiple plays during the loss against the Colts on Saturday, but how he handles the situation after the fact will say a lot. Especially after Pickens failed to take accountability yesterday, Tomlin needs to handle the situation.
A coach can only do so much, but if the players aren’t upholding the standards and system set in place, that’s a problem and a sign the message is falling flat. The leadership void has led the offense to underperform all season because there’s just no one who seems to want to take an active role in stepping up and righting the ship. There’s been a lot of frustration among members of the offense, but no one is stepping up to fix things. Diontae Johnson is supposed to be the leader of the wide receiver room, but he’s taken plays off this season. For Pickens, he sees that and decides he can take plays off.
It’s just an ugly situation with the Steelers fading fast and the locker room seemingly more concerned with blaming the media than actually trying to fix their issues. With three games left, it will be an absolute miracle if the Steelers make the playoffs.
