If the opening offensive drive of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ ultimate preseason sport is any indication, then second-year vast receiver George Pickens is in midseason type.
Pickens, who wowed Steelers followers — and NFL followers alike — together with his catch radius as a rookie, turned in one of many extra spectacular performs of the preseason in Thursday evening’s preseason sport in opposition to the Atlanta Falcons. On the primary drive of the sport the Steelers confronted a 2nd-and-10 scenario on the Atlanta 36-yard line. Fellow second-year quarterback Kenny Pickett dropped into the pocket and regarded in Pickens’ route, because the receiver ran a go route.
They made the connection, because of an unimaginable effort from the receiver:
On this remoted digicam angle, you possibly can see the receiver not solely pull within the acrobatic reception, but additionally pull his left hand off the soccer and attain for the pylon together with his proper hand. By some means he has the power to tug off this transfer:
Pittsburgh scored on the very subsequent play on a one-yard landing run from Najee Harris.
For his half, Pickett was 4-for-4 for 86 yards in only one drive of labor. That dropped at a detailed his preseason work, throughout which the second-year quarterback put up some spectacular statistics:
Kenny Pickett’s 2023 Preseason Stats:
5 Drives (All TDs)
13 of 15 passing
199 Yards
2 TDs
Excellent Passer Score (158.3)#Steelers #NFL
— Steelers Depot 7⃣ (@Steelersdepot) August 25, 2023
There may be some rising buzz in regards to the Steelers this season. Kyle Brandt of the NFL Community labeled the Steelers a playoff staff, ESPN’s Ryan Clark in contrast Pickett to Ben Roethlisberger lately, and Adam Schein of CBS Sports activities cautioned NFL followers to not sleep on Pittsburgh.
With numbers like this from Pickett — and performs like this from his favourite goal — these daring predictions could very properly come true.
