Everybody, including most of George Pickens’ fellow wide receivers, thought he was going to end up being active for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns. A hamstring injury on Thursday put his status in question for the game, and it ended up being a game-time decision 90 minutes before the game when the inactive list was due.
Pickens had every reason to want to play in this game. Just a couple weeks prior, CB Greg Newsome II called him a fake tough guy following a scuffle on the final hail mary. Pickens then acted like he didn’t know who Newsome was to the media. There is obviously some bad blood there, and Pickens was no doubt looking forward to letting his play talk with a big game against the Browns in the rematch.
During Episode 2 of HBO’s Hard Knocks, Pickens could be seen talking to Mike Tomlin on the sideline during the game.
“I wanna play so bad, boy,” Pickens said to Tomlin.
“It’s that football life,” Tomlin responded with a laugh. “Just football life.”
This was the first game that Pickens has missed in his NFL career. Up until then, he had played 47-straight games including the playoffs last year.
There may be certain impressions that fans or members of the media have about Pickens because of his occasional antics on the field, but as Donte Jackson said last week, nobody has more fun than Pickens. He truly loves football and works hard at it, and having big performances on game day is the payoff for all of that hard work. This was the first time he’s had to experience missing out on the action since getting drafted, so it was fun to see him itching to play on the sidelines during Hard Knocks.
Because of the sudden change that the wide receiver room had to deal with on game day, they probably weren’t as prepared as they possibly could have been for the increase in their individual roles. Tomlin acknowledged that during his Tuesday press conference, saying there is a benefit to knowing Pickens’ doubtful status early in the week this time around. The other receivers can better prepare for their increased roles.
That being said, it was interesting to see how WR coach Zach Azzanni was addressing his room leading up to the game. Pickens being out wasn’t as big of a blindside as it initially seemed.
“I don’t know exactly the status right now on George with the hamstring, okay? So obviously we all gotta be ready to roll as we always are,” Azzanni said. “…Guys that aren’t up might be up. He might go get something, I don’t know, but that’s no different than any one of us getting dinged up in a game. We gotta make sure we all know every spot. Everyone cool?”
It is hard to say when that scene took place in Hard Knocks. Tomlin said the initial injury happened on Thursday, so it could have possibly been either Friday or Saturday. Either way, the receivers had at least some time to prepare mentally. That doesn’t change the fact that there was very little time to prepare physically on the field in practice.
Some backups don’t get many reps with the starting quarterback. Scotty Miller, for example, likely wasn’t getting a ton of reps during practice last week before he played 34 snaps on offense. This week, he will definitely be getting more work in practice.
Hard Knocks may end up missing out on the George Pickens experience altogether depending on how many games he misses. With three games in 11 days coming up, you have to wonder if they might wait until the regular season finale to get him back in action.
