George Pickens played well against the Cincinnati Bengals, but he far from had a perfect day. After a frustrating loss to the Cleveland Browns, the Pittsburgh Steelers captured victory against the Bengals. Pickens had a nice bounce-back performance after he let his emotions get the better of him in Week 12. However, he still hurt the team Sunday, getting called for two needless penalties in the Steelers’ 44-38 win at Paycor Stadium.
“I just think that he’s just gotta understand that when you’re one of the best receivers in the world, everybody’s gonna have their eyes on you,” Steelers QB Russell Wilson said after the game via the team’s YouTube channel. “You gotta understand just to stay neutral, stay poised in those moments, and still bring excitement.
“Don’t change that. I was telling him on the sideline, ‘When you’re one of the best in the world, you expect to make those plays and you don’t need to do anything extra necessarily.’ He responded really well to that.”
This season, Pickens has been unreal in good and bad ways. From a purely football perspective, Pickens has taken his game to another level, especially with Wilson throwing him the ball. He’s made multiple eye-popping catches, helping the Steelers establish a deep-passing attack.
However, with the good has also come some bad. Pickens’ attitude has been a problem at different points this year. He’s allowed his emotions to control him, lashing out and hurting the team. In Week 12, he ended the game against the Browns by scuffling with a player. Then, he made some unnecessary comments about the Browns after the game.
Pickens’ issues this week weren’t awful, but they still hurt the Steelers. He was called for taunting and unsportsmanlike conduct. Both instances were easily avoidable. The taunting call came in the first quarter after Pickens caught a pass. He proceeded to drop the ball on a Bengals defender who was on the ground. The Steelers still scored a touchdown on that drive, but that penalty didn’t need to happen.
The unsportsmanlike conduct call came early in the third quarter. Once again, Pickens made a huge play, catching a deep ball from Wilson to set the Steelers up at the Bengals’ 13-yard line. However, after the play, he made a motion with his hand like he was shooting a gun.
The resulting penalty pushed the Steelers outside of the red zone, and then they had their field-goal attempt blocked. Instead of potentially scoring a touchdown, the Steelers walked away with zero points on that drive. It was a frustrating sequence of events.
For what it’s worth, Pickens stated he didn’t intend for his hand to look like a gun. He seemed apologetic for hurting the team. Pickens isn’t a thug; he’s just immature. Considering how young he is, that’s understandable. Going forward, he does need to be better, but it sounds like he took the messages from Wilson to heart.
