Steelers wide receiver George Pickens caught the attention of the Jaguars last week.
Pickens said Jacksonville has a “hope defense” heading into Sunday’s game and that comment was brought up by several Jaguars players after their 20-10 road win. Pickens only had one catch — it was a 22-yard touchdown — and safety Andrew Wingard said you “don’t fire up a hungry dog” in reference to the wideout’s comments.
Linebacker Foye Oluokon said the Jags defense “hoped pretty well” and safety Rayshawn Jenkins also had Pickens in mind when he shared what the Jaguars hoped to see out of the Steelers on Sunday.
“When you give us bulletin board material like that, of course we’re going to come out and really show you how we play this game,” Jenkins said, via the team’s website. “We put a lot of work into this game and for someone to disrespect us like that, we took that personal. He’s a young guy and hopefully he learns to not bark up the wrong tree. Going back to that hope thing, man, like I keep telling everybody, we were just hoping they would’ve come in here and put up a better fight than that, you know?”
The Chiefs lost to the Broncos on Sunday, which means the Jaguars now have the longest current winning streak in the NFL at five games. Hope alone doesn’t get that done, so it’s no surprise that the Jags took some motivation from what Pickens had to say ahead of Sunday’s game.