George Pickens made his mark in his first NFL training camp with the type of body control and spatial awareness that led to a series of artistic catches which he carried over into the preseason.
As his NFL debut approaches for the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team’s second-round draft pick would like remind those that consider him a candidate for the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year that he’s not a one-trick pony.
Pickens wants to be known as a physical blocker, too.
“I don’t say it enough as I should, but blocking can really throw a defensive back off his game, and then we can hit him with the pass,” Pickens said Thursday. “It’s a double-whammy type of thing. When a DB gets in the game, he’s thinking about working on his technique and covering his guy. He’s not really ready for the blocking, so I use it as a 1-2 combo.”
Don’t ask Pickens which part of the combination he prefers — the catch or the hit.
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“Really, both,” he said. “That’s the thing about the 1-2 combo, you can get really excited about pancaking a guy or you and make a one-handed catch and still be really excited.”
If Pickens wants to get in the spirit of the team’s rivalry with the Cincinnati Bengals, their season-opening opponent, all he has to do is watch tape of what a former Steelers rookie did in 2017. JuJu Smith-Schuster leveled Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict with a thunderous hit that resulted in a suspension.
Pickens admittedly knew little about the history between the two teams. His teammates have gotten him up to speed.
“They told me it’s a real rivalry,” he said. “I didn’t really know. I thought everything was on the same playing field and the team we played didn’t matter, but the Bengals are like a real rivalry with us being the Steelers. We just have to go out there and execute.”
