George Pickens Claims Low Snap Count Is Not His Fault: ‘It’s All Up to Art’
PITTSBURGH — To say the least, Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens has had a tumultuous week after Sunday night’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys. After making headlines for his explicit eye black message, displaying poor effort, mysteriously playing only 39 snaps and throwing Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis down by his facemask on the last play, Pickens finally spoke to the media on Thursday after denying previous requests.
Pickens made a eye-opening statement in regards to his playing time, as he doesn’t feel that it’s on him to earn back any of the reps he lost last Sunday. He placed the blame on Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
“It was just part of the game plan,” Pickens said.
Asked if he feels he can earn those reps back: “No. It’s not on me. It’s all up to Art. If Art wants to do a certain type of play or certain types of game plans, it’s going to be different.”
He also said he was not aware of the NFL rule against personal messages displayed while playing and said he has not at this point gotten any blowback for it. Pickens’ eye black message was “Open f***ing Always.”
“It’s just eye black,” George Pickens simply stated. He also said there wasn’t as purpose behind the eye black’s message.
Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said that he didn’t get any sense of frustration from Pickens regarding his limited workload. When pressed about Pickens’ emotional reactions during the game, he basically said Pickens is always that way.
“Different lifetime, but certainly done it with other premium players,” Smith said about Pickens’ snap management. “Done it with Derrick Henry. He wanted to be out there to play, and he wasn’t out there in all the third downs and he got plenty of touches. Did it with A.J. Brown, early, certain things and trying to mix and match and maximize things or set things up.
“[Pickens] is still, I believe, depending on what metric you’re using, seventh in targets in passing downs or passing opportunities in the league. So I get it, you lose a game, and something may look off or whatever, but that’s not. And then we communicate to any player, whether it’s Scotty [Miller] or Van [Jefferson] or Connor Heyward, guys know the roles. You got to know the backups and how you package things. Those are week-to-week things. That’s the best way I can answer it.”
Alan Saunders. contributed reporting from Pittsburgh.
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