Steelers receiver George Pickens has gotten a little frustrated.
Head coach Mike Tomlin addressed it. Some of Pickens’ teammates have addressed it. And offensive coordinator Matt Canada has now done so as well during his Thursday press conference.
“Me and George get along great. I think George loves football. He loves to play. He wants to win,” Canada said. “We talked — me being on the sideline, I talked to George after every series. George was happy we were playing well, wanting to win.
“Obviously, he wants to — he’s a super talent. He wants the ball. Everybody who plays football at a skill position wants the ball, and they want the ball more. I don’t think you’d find anybody anywhere that doesn’t. We’re in a great spot with that. We’ll continue to go, continue to find ways to win.”
Pickens has been facing some more double teams in coverage, which is part of why his production has dropped. He made two catches for -1 yards in last week’s win over Tennessee and had one 22-yard touchdown reception the week before against Jacksonville.
Canada noted there are some things the Steelers can do schematically to free Pickens up. But they also don’t want to have quarterback Kenny Pickett just start firing balls to Pickens when he’s double covered.
“Obviously, GP is an unbelievable talent, has had some great games this year and has drawn a lot of attention,” Canada said. “If you look at the attention he’s drawn the last couple weeks, especially on Thursday, what happened? The run game opened up. Why? Because there’s two guys on George almost every play. Diontae [Johnson], again, had another big night because there’s two guys on George.
“We can’t let him just be minimized completely. That’s a balance there. We understand both sides of that.”
Pickens has recorded 30 catches for 521 yards with three touchdowns so far this season. We’ll see if his production goes up on Sunday when the Steelers play the Packers.
