One of the big concerns for the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers is their wide receiver room. George Pickens is a bona fide WR1, but the rest of the room leaves a lot to be desired. That didn’t change in Week 1 with just eight yards on two receptions for wide receivers not named Pickens.
Despite the one-dimensional passing game, Pickens excelled in Week 1 at getting open. According to Pro Football Focus, Pickens had the sixth-highest rate in the league at creating separation.
This metric focuses solely on the plays where a receiver actually needs to work to get open. In other words, plays where the opposing defense had coverage designed to stop them from catching the ball.
This shows some nice improvement for Pickens, who struggled on a number of routes at getting separation during his rookie season in 2022. Matt Harmon of Reception Perception wrote about that at length leading up to the 2023 season. It improved in 2023, but still wasn’t at the level it needed to be for a true No. 1 WR.
For this passing game to be successful, Pickens absolutely needed to take another step in terms of creating his own space and getting open. That is especially important as defenses will undoubtedly give him extra attention as the only real receiving threat outside TE Pat Freiermuth.
His catch in the final seconds of the first half was a nice route by Pickens. He released inside off the line of scrimmage, and looked as if he was going to threaten the deep middle of the field. This forced the safety to cheat and allowed Pickens to break outside and flatten his route to create a ton of separation.
The only receivers who had a better rate than Pickens were Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis, Chris Olave, and Adonai Mitchell, as well as TE Mark Andrews.
Pickens finished this game with six receptions on seven targets for 85 yards. He would have had another 36 yards to get over 100 on the day if not for a questionable pass interference call.
It is a small sample size, but this is an encouraging sign for the guy who is going to need to carry the Steelers’ passing game in 2024.
