Behind the Steel Curtain
For the vast majority of the 2025 season, George Pickens has looked like an All-Pro receiver – the same caliber of player that many a Pittsburgh Steeler fan believed he was capable of becoming. He is second in the NFL in receiving yards and is tied for third in touchdown receptions.
However, we all know that talent wasn’t the issue with Pickens, nor was it the reason the Steelers were so eager to move on from him. It was the attitude we all saw on display frequently in the form of on-field tantrums and a clear lack of effort when he knew he wouldn’t be getting the ball. And while it may have taken a while, the Cowboys got a taste of what that George Pickens looks like.
There were multiple instances where Pickens looked flat out uninterested in being on the field. He jogged a route on 3rd-and-19 at the end of the third quarter, and the pass intended for him was incomplete. A deep shot to him later on in the fourth quarter looked like it could have been caught if he had dived. There were just far too many reminders of what it looks like when Pickens gets into one of these moods where he doesn’t seem to care.
This caused Richard Sherman to go off on Pickens on the Prime Video postgame show.
“George Pickens throughout the game – especially late in the game – just looked uninterested,” Sherman said via Noah Strackbein of Sports Illustrated. “Uninterested in playing football. And that’s what you can’t have if you’re gonna be a superstar. If you wanna be the best receiver in the National Football League, you can’t ever be disengaged.”
Pickens is a tremendous talent, and I’ll even continue to say I was wrong for defending the trade to begin with. he has outperformed every Steelers wideout and then some this season. However, this is the type of behavior that gives you a bad reputation, and why the Steelers were willing to part ways with the former second-round pick.
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