Steelers have culture of quitting
IT was during last year’s fraudulent late-season run, against a bunch of bad quarterbacks, that coach/babysitter/enabler Mike Tomlin forcefully backed George Pickens despite the receiver’s blatant display of selfishness during a victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
Television cameras caught Pickens, then 21, coming off the field yelling for the football like he was a 10-year veteran who had earned the right. He continued to act out on the sidelines. The Steelers were winning at the time. Team captain Cam Heyward confronted Pickens and calmed him down.
Tomlin seemed insulted when asked to address the matter.
“I’m not going to make that a negative, no matter how silly I think the commentary is, or people talking about him expressing frustrations and trying to make it a negative storyline,” Tomlin said. “I laugh at that.”
He’s not laughing anymore. Not after a week in which Tomlin finally admitted that Pickens’ visible frustrations had become “a problem,” one that apparently prompted the coach to have a sit-down with his receiver in the days leading up to the Colts game.
“He and I had a great meeting this week,” Tomlin told Steelers.com.
It didn’t work. Pickens quit in the middle of a play during the brutal loss to the Colts, much as fellow receiver Diontae Johnson had so publicly quit on a play against the Cincinnati Bengals three games earlier.
Do these guys know how bad they make their coach look?
Then again, maybe Tomlin enables such behavior. Maybe he should bench players who quit on plays as a way to curb that behavior.
Steelers receivers have become a league-wide talking point. NFL insider Peter
King believes Tomlin will be back to coach next season, but only if some serious issues get resolved. This is one of them.
“I think the one thing Art Rooney really needs to do when it comes to the postseason decision (on Tomlin) is you gotta decide, are we gonna try to bring in somebody from the outside to try and revamp, maybe redesign our offense? So, that’s one thing,” King said. “And then, the second thing is — I don’t think this is a fatal flaw — but I think it bothers me. It bothers me that Diontae Johnson and George Pickens do not play all out on every snap. Somehow, some way, that must get fixed.”
Pickens simply stopped playing on a goal-line run by Jaylen Warren. This happened a week after TV analyst Kirk Herbstreit called out Pickens for “just kind of taking a play off ” on a Warren run against the Patriots.
At least that play was to the opposite side of the field. This one was right behind Pickens, who stood like a pedestrian at a stop sign as cornerback Jaylon Jones helped tackle Warren just before the goal line.
Later in the game, Pickens took a curious path on a Colts interception return — which is to say, a path that seemed to take him as far away from the interceptor and his blockers as possible.
Oh, and during a week he reminded people that “I can’t really produce that way, running 5-yard routes, 3-yard routes,” Pickens got a jump ball opportunity 40 yards downfield, with body position, and lost badly, allowing a possible big play to somehow become a Nick Cross interception.
All of this is happening a month after Pickens moped on the sidelines after Johnson finally broke his lengthy touchdown drought. Pickens later went to Instagram to cryptically complain about not getting the ball enough — which is true, by the way.
For some observers, this kind of behavior was predictable. There were questions about Pickens coming out of Georgia, though Tomlin scoffed at such talk.
The record shows that some teams were concerned. Here are three takes on Pickens:
Scout: “There’s a lot of upside, but he can’t get out of his own way. He’s been enabled his whole life.”
NFL receiver coach: “You love his game, but there’s some issues. Do you want to work with him? … I wouldn’t touch him.”
Different receiver coach: “On tape, he’s probably a top-five receiver, but there’s a lot of red flags, and they’re big red flags. He’s got a lot of growing up to do. If he goes to the right place with a room full of veterans that help him, I think he’ll have a chance.”
Instead, he went to a place where the player ahead of him on the depth chart also quit during a game.
What a mess.