Steelers receiver George Pickens tried to tell reporters Wednesday, presumably after a lengthy visit to principal Mike Tomlin’s office, that he wasn’t upset or frustrated last week during or after a win over the Titans on Thursday night and that he had made up his mind , stripping off all references to the Steelers on his Instagram page had nothing to do with football.
Two of his teammates did not receive the “Serenity Now” memo.
Via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com, both running back Najee Harris and receiver Diontae Johnson made comments to reporters on Wednesday confirming the basic assumption that George was indeed upset.
“I told GP it’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with being frustrated, it’s just a matter of how you deal with things,” Harris said. “Obviously he’s a talented guy. Teams will do everything they can to minimize it. But I also just told him in the middle of the game that you have to keep your composure.”
“I had a good conversation with him,” Johnson said. “He understood, and I understood where he was coming from. Nobody is perfect. You can’t beat him. At the same time, he’s human, so I didn’t think too much about the situation. I know what it was – obviously frustration with the game. . . . So if he does what he did, there is a better way to handle certain situations. But he felt like he had to deal with it in his own way, but at the same time it wasn’t the right time to do all this.”
Johnson said he waited until Monday to discuss the situation with Pickens.
“I shared it with him,” Johnson said. “I just told him what to do next time or to just not put that stuff out. You don’t want people to create a narrative about you. He understands.”
He definitely gets it. To the point where he’s willing to deny that there was even a problem, even though there clearly was one.