The Pittsburgh Steelers were dominated by the Indianapolis Colts in the second half of Saturday night’s game between the two teams, but George Pickens looked like he did not really care to be there from the start.
Pickens made one of the most pathetic block attempts you will ever see on a running play inside the 10 early in Pittsburgh’s 30-13 loss. Jaylen Warren took a pitch from the 7-yard line and looked like he had a chance to score, but Pickens did not even try to block Colts cornerback Jaylon Jones. Warren was stopped just short of the goal line.
During the CBS pregame show on Sunday, Kyle Long unloaded on Pickens over the lack of effort.
"When Mitch throws you a jump ball and you're the biggest, freakiest guy on the field and you get Randy Mossed between the hashes- I take issue with it."
— @Ky1eLong on George Pickens pic.twitter.com/EaIjb48UJZ
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) December 17, 2023
The Steelers eventually scored on a Mitch Trubisky sneak to take a 6-0 lead. However, head coach Mike Tomlin will not be happy when he sees that play on film. Warren might be upset about it, too.
Pickens has looked frustrated all season with Pittsburgh’s struggling offense. That is totally understandable, but there have even been moments where he appeared to be sulking when positive things were happening. Tomlin recently had to respond to questions about Pickens’ openly poor body language.
Pickens is not the only Steelers receiver who has shown zero effort on a key play this season. That is a bad sign for the 7-7 team going forward.
