Mike Tomlin heavily downplayed any concerns or potential problems regarding George Pickens’ social media controversy this week after the Steelers win vs the Tennessee Titans.
“It is a pebble in my shoe to be quite honest with you,” Tomlin said during his Tuesday press conference when asked about Pickens’ actions on Instagram after Pittsburgh’s win.
Pickens was visibly frustrated late in the game vs the Titans, with a picture of his dejected facial expression during Diontae Johnson celebrating his first touchdown in over 650 days on the sideline going viral.
After the game, Pickens’ archived all of his Steelers-related posts, unfollowed teammates (including Diontae), and changed his profile picture to one during his high school days.
In addition to that, he posted to his Instagram Stories with a small caption that read “free me.”
Steelers fans took notice, and soon after creating a flurry of conversations regarding Pickens’ reaction. It became a bigger story over the following days as national media picked it up.
A few hours after his initial blow up, Pickens restored the posts, re-followed Johnson and others, and posted to his story claiming that his actions meant nothing and jokingly said “y’all need urgentcare.”
Pickens had right to be frustrated over his lack of use in the offense. On Thursday, he was targeted just 5 times, with 2 catches for -1 yards.
This came after he was targeted 5 times in the previous game vs the Jacksonville Jaguars as well.
From a deployment perspective, Pickens has ever right to be frustrated. For a man of his talents and freakish athletic ability, the Steelers’ offense need to be getting him much more involved in their passing game.
However, vs Tennessee, Pickens had a chance to score a touchdown, but a simple, seemingly mental gaffe, cost him. Pickens was not able to get two feet in bounds in the endzone in this game, in a drive where the Steelers were forced to settle for a field goal.
It’s a true statement that the Steelers do not get Pickens the ball enough, but it is also a true statement that Pickens has to make the most of his limited opportunities. That was arguably the best throw Kenny Pickett made that night; Pickens has to come down with that catch.
His anger also came after a Steelers win. Had Pittsburgh lost that game, there would be some more understanding (not acceptance, but understanding) from this fan base about his frustrations.
But the Steelers pulled out the win, 20-16. It’s hard to garner support for your cause when you act out after a win.
When asked about how to coach a young player going through adversity, Tomlin replied “like breathing, it’s easy.”
“I know it’s a cute story for you guys, but it’s a pebble in my shoe to be quite honest with you in terms of the things that I have to do in an effort to get this group ready to play,” he said.
Tomlin added that the media’s coverage of players’ social media is like “reality television.”
Tomlin made it a point to dismiss Pickens’ social media as a non-issue, but his stance that he has no worries over his players’ social media is a little hypocritical.
Back in 2017, Tomlin benched wide receiver Martavis Bryant for a social media outburst, demoting him for a game against the Detroit Lions after Bryant had been vocal about wanting out of Pittsburgh and being frustrated with his role. Bryant also went after his teammate in rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster on social media as well.
In addition to that, the Steelers suspended safety Mike Mitchell from social media in 2014 after he told a fan on Twitter to kill himself.
Aside from those incidents, Tomlin has had to deal with several other players with social media controversies as well. Most notably Antonio Brown, who had several incidents (including that Facebook Live stream while Tomlin was ripping the New England Patriots), but also players like Chase Claypool.
Even Smith-Schuster had problems as well, though he did not attack or go after fans or his teammates on any platform ever.
It could very well be true that the story surrounding Pickens is blown out of proportion, and that his teammates and coaches can help talk and calm Pickens down and get back to work. But, we’ve seen this story before. And Tomlin has acted on stories like this before.
We, as a football city, are somewhat scarred by the ghosts of players like Brown and Claypool and others, who brought negative attention via social media and were controversial in the locker room as well.
To say that George Pickens is the next Antonio Brown is definitely a big stretch at this point, but Tomlin seems to be a little too dismissive of some of these problems.
We can only hope that Pickens is the next AB in terms of pure talent, not the other stuff.
(Featured photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
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