The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offseason moves thus far all point to their belief in third-year WR George Pickens as “the guy”. That’s not going to change unless they make some huge splash like trading for Brandon Aiyuk, either. But while he may serve that role for the Steelers, is he a “guy” relative to the entire NFL?
“George Pickens is the Steelers’ number one receiver, but we don’t know if he’s an NFL number one receiver”, Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said on Thursday on 93.7 The Fan. “I wouldn’t put him in a top-15, top-20 category of NFL receivers. But he is that guy for the Steelers”.
This isn’t a new opinion from Fittipaldo, who’s heretofore expressed his reservations about Pickens. Here, however, he actually spends some time elaborating. It’s true that Pickens still has a lot to prove, granted. He doesn’t even have 10 career touchdown catches yet, or 2,000 receiving yards. So why does he hold these reservations?
“You have to comport yourself in a certain way. You’ve got to be a team player. He exhibited some really negative qualities as a teammate last season”, he said of Pickens. He’s obviously referencing some “me first” moments, including his non-block for Jaylen Warren and how he handled it. “That’s one hurdle”.
On the field, Pickens has put up schizophrenic numbers. His overall stat line in 2023 is solid enough. He finished the year with 63 catches for 1,140 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 18.1 yards per catch.
Yet one week he might catch seven for 131 and then the next week not even catch a pass. That’s an extreme example, but the back of his card is full of such disparities. Consistency both in production and in performance remains elusive.
“From a talent standpoint, I think he’s got it all. He’s tall, he’s fast”, Fittipaldo insisted, regarding Pickens. “One knock is he doesn’t get a lot of separation. He’s not always open, so he’s got to work on that. You won’t get any argument from me that he’s out of the catalogue as a number one receiver, but there’s a lot of other stuff in his game that he’s got to work on. I think first and foremost is becoming a better teammate and being a hard worker”.
I found Fittipaldo’s comment regarding the catalogue ambiguous, so I didn’t want to run with it. You can read it two ways, and even listening to it doesn’t provide great clarity. Is he saying that Pickens is not in the catalogue of top receivers? Or is he speaking figuratively, as though he is a model that you select and purchase “out of the catalogue”?
I honestly don’t know, but it really doesn’t change Fittipaldo’s point. He and others say time and again that George Pickens has all the talent in the world. That’s true enough, or so it seems. But has he proven himself as a top-15 wide receiver in the league? Sure, he has had Matt Canada and Kenny Pickett to work with, and maybe he turns into Randy Moss this year. But up to this point, he hasn’t, and we can’t entirely pin that on everybody but him. Largely, perhaps, but not entirely.
