The most bizarre thing to come out of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Week 5 loss to the Dallas Cowboys was the fact that wide receiver George Pickens finished third among the team's receivers in snaps.
Per NFLGSIS.com, Pickens played 34 of a possible 58 snaps, a new career low for him. To compare, fellow wideouts Van Jefferson and Calvin Austin played 47 and 44, respectively, in the loss to Dallas.
What's worse, Pickens ran just 12 routes and played 21 snaps through three quarters, per Brooke Pryor of ESPN. Meanwhile, Jefferson played 32 snaps and ran 18 routes in that span, while Austin played 29 snaps and ran 16 routes. The Georgia product finished with just three catches on seven targets for 26 yards.
When asked about Pickens' drop in snaps, head coach Mike Tomlin said it was about "snap management" and the hope was that it would lead to more productivity.
He equated the approach to the team's rotation of defensive linemen and said there was nothing more to it than that.
"You know, we just wanted to kind of minimize his reps in an effort to get more productivity," Tomlin said. "You know, we're just trying to rep manage in terms of the totality of the big picture. He wasn't less of a focal point in terms of our intentions of what we wanted to do offensively, but we did wanna cut his reps a little bit in an effort to get higher quality play, just in general."
"It's no different than we minimized some of the snaps of d-linemen like Cam Heyward and so forth, man," he added. "It is just about snap management. It's no underlying story, to be quite honest with you."
That is an odd approach, to say the least. After all, Pickens played a season-high 60 snaps in Week 4 and had his best game of the season, tallying seven catches for 113 yards on 11 targets.
With their offensive struggles, and with the Steelers not having reliable options in the wide receivers room, Pittsburgh can ill-afford to not have its best receiver on the field more often.
Pittsburgh Steelers snap counts Week 5
Here's a look at the snap counts for players on both sides of the ball.
Steelers snap counts Week 5 vs. Cowboys
— Brian Batko (@BrianBatko) October 7, 2024
• George Pickens with career-lows of 34 and 59%
• TJ Watt plays 70, tied for fifth-most of his career
• Only 15 for Larry Ogunjobi amid mid-week groin injury pic.twitter.com/xbqdNdYRRU
Following their second straight loss that drops them to 3-2, the Steelers will be in Vegas in Week 6 to take on the Raiders.
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