In parts of Sunday’s game against the Cowboys, primarily in the second half as the Steelers were in comeback mode, third-year wide receiver George Pickens found himself on the sideline at times. It raised eyebrows and led to questions for head coach Mike Tomlin after the game regarding the usage of the standout receiver, who played just 34 of Pittsburgh’s 57 offensive snaps.
For Tomlin, it was just about rep management in an effort to keep Pickens fresh. Pickens made a big play on the drive in the fourth quarter, hauling in a 21-yard pass from Justin Fields and drawing a personal foul, late hit out of bounds at the end of it. But it was rather noticeable that he wasn’t on the field at times, especially on a night in which he had an interesting message on his eye black that drew attention.
There is no underlying story there in the limited snaps for Pickens though, Tomlin stated.
“We just wanted to kind of minimize his reps in an effort to get more productivity. We were just trying to rep manage in terms of the totality of the big picture,” Tomlin said of the limited snaps for Pickens, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube page. “He wasn’t less of a focal point in terms of our intentions of what we wanted to do offensively, but we did wanna cut his reps a little bit in an effort to get higher quality play, just in general.
“…It is no different than we minimized some of the snaps of d-linemen like Cam Heyward and so forth, man. It is just about snap management. It’s no underlying story, to be quite honest with you.”
As the only true threat at the receiver position, one would expect Pickens to be on the field for nearly every offensive snap, but that wasn’t the case Sunday night. It was a bit of a curious decision considering the Steelers weren’t getting much of anything from the other receivers early in the game, and haven’t been all season long.
So, despite that being an easy observation after seeing No. 14 on the sideline and clearly not on the field during important drives and moments, it led to questions that Tomlin shot down as having no underlying story and the Steelers just being cautious as far as limiting reps for Pickens.
On the final play, Pickens didn’t exactly help himself, either, grabbing Cowboys’ corner Jourdan Lewis by the facemask after the final whistle and pulling him to the ground after Lewis said something to him. That moment capped off a frustrating night for Pickens, who donned the strongly-worded eye black, then went out and had 3 receptions for 26 yards.
Not great! Now, the conversation will be about his snap count, the eye black and his dust-up after the final whistle, leading to potentially more needless storylines.
