The George Pickens Show: The story behind the Steelers freakish, viral rookie WR

From the moment George Pickens introduced himself to the NFL universe, with a balaclava over his tilted head in a viral draft-day video, he’s been a walking meme. A 6-foot-3, 200-pound GIF with a 77 3/8-inch wingspan. A human retweet with 4.47 speed.

Twitter calls him “HIM” or “NFL Youngboy.” His friends back in Hoover, Ala., nicknamed the receiver “The Issue.” And if you didn’t know any better, you’d think his X-rays actually do show the dog in him.

Among rookie receivers, Pickens enters Week 10 fifth in receptions (26) and yards (338). But the stats tell only part of the story. With a physical edge to his game and a catch radius that feels like a Madden glitch, Pickens leads the team in viral moments.

There’s the back-shoulder fade in Miami for his first NFL TD. The pancake blocks against the Lions, Seahawks and Jets. And who could forget the one-handed grab in Cleveland?

Still can’t get over this catch by George Pickens 🔥#PITvsCLE on Prime Video
Also available on NFL+ https://t.co/uF4okqrMww pic.twitter.com/wfnv5Vdtkt

— NFL (@NFL) September 23, 2022

“What he’s doing on the field is art,” said Jason Kervin, Pickens’ offensive coordinator at Hoover High School. “It’s like the difference between a singer and a performer. He’s not out there singing songs. He’s putting on a performance.

“When he’s on the field, it’s ‘The George Pickens Show.’”

The funny thing is Pickens impresses almost everyone but himself. His first career NFL touchdown? “Routine.” Where does the Odell Beckham-esque grab against the Browns rank on his list of best catches? “Probably like seven,” Pickens said.

You can look up Pickens’ Georgia highlights on YouTube or watch his high school Hudl tape. But when you ask anyone who has coached or played alongside Pickens, you’ll find a long list of people who claim to have witnessed the greatest catch that (almost) no one has ever seen.

Heck, he did it the other day.

“He casually made the best catch I’ve ever seen,” rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett said two weeks back. “I’ve never seen a catch like that in my life.”

When Pickens slid out of the first round and into the Steelers’ lap with the 52nd selection in April’s draft, Pittsburgh’s receiver room was already one of its deepest position groups. But the Steelers snagged Pickens anyway, believing he was far better than the 11th receiver off the board.

In doing so, Pittsburgh altered its plan at the position. The ripple effects culminated last week with the trade of Chase Claypool — a talented playmaker in his own right who totaled 11 touchdowns as a rookie — to Chicago for a second-round pick.

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The move reaffirmed the faith the front office has in Pickens. It also paved the way for more targets for the rookie, just days after he had a catchless outing in Philadelphia, his quietest game of the season.

Now, the receiver whose playing style is seemingly handmade for both the AFC North and the social media age has more opportunity and expectations in his quest to prove he’s the steal of the draft.

The first steps of a promising football future began on the playgrounds and backyards of Hoover, a large suburban city outside Birmingham.

Pickens’ brother, Chris Humes, was seven years older and already beginning to blossom into a shutdown defensive back who would eventually play for Arkansas State, the Las Vegas Raiders and the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Looking to refine his technique, Humes enlisted his brother to run routes. One-on-one. Brother vs. brother. High schooler vs. elementary schooler. No quarterback. No ball. Pickens would line up across from Humes. On Pickens’ first movement, both players raced to a spot.

Yeah, good luck with that.

“I couldn’t get off the line,” Pickens recalled to The Athletic. “He would always press. I couldn’t win.”

Those reps shaped Pickens into the competitor he is today. He developed a rugged playing style that could turn 50-50 balls into 80-20 balls, or a routine block into a highlight.

“That’s actually the reason why I play the way I do,” Pickens said. “I realize I’ve got to start lifting or do something. I gotta get faster. I gotta lift weights. I got to do something to beat him.”

George Pickens at the Under Armour All-America Game in January 2019. (Kim Klement / USA Today)

That mindset fit seamlessly at Hoover High, a prep powerhouse with an Under Armour sponsorship deal and a shiny facility that would make some Division II programs envious.

In 2016, freshman coach Jeff Haley told the varsity staff that Pickens might be the best player to ever come through the program. Soon everyone saw what Haley did.

Hoover developed more than two dozen defensive backs into Division I athletes under coach Josh Niblett from 2008 to 2021. Defense is the school’s calling card. In 10th grade, Pickens was a JV player running scout team against varsity starters.

“When I say he was destroying our defense on scout team, this is not hyperbole,” Kervin said. “He just was he was making plays every day, just as a 10th-grader, and that was one of the best Hoover defenses we had.

“It didn’t take it didn’t take a well-trained eye to realize that George Pickens was special.”

Before long, Pickens was a known commodity in recruiting circles and committed to Auburn as a sophomore. But the buzz reached a fever pitch after a game that was impossible to ignore.

In the regular-season finale of Pickens’ junior year, Hoover faced IMG Academy, a high school football blue blood. Two drives in, Hoover was already in a 14-0 hole. Kervin stopped thinking about plays and started thinking about players. More specifically, Pickens.

The offensive coordinator said he called four or five consecutive back-shoulder fades to Pickens until, finally, they were celebrating the last one in the end zone. Pickens finished with double-digit catches and three touchdowns against some of the nation’s best defensive backs, including now Jaguars safety Andre Cisco and 2021 Browns first-round cornerback Greg Newsome.

“Everybody knew kind of from that point on who George Pickens was,” Kervin said.

But for all the big-time catches Pickens made in that game, it’s a tackle that his head coach remembers. The Buccaneers threw an interception. From the other side of the field, with virtually no angle, Pickens raced to the goal line and dove to make the tackle at the 1-yard line.

“That’s probably the best thing that describes him best,” Niblett said. “When a play is snapped, no matter what his job is or his opportunity, he wants to be the best player on the field at that moment.”

Every game that followed produced one highlight after another.

There was the punt return against Spain Park — when Pickens broke no less than seven tackles — which Niblett calls “one of the best punt returns ever in high school history.”

There was the ridiculous one-handed catch over a corner from St. John’s College High in Washington, D.C. There was the time Pickens juked five Hewitt defenders out of their shoes.

Still, those who know him best say the best catches came in practice.

“It’s not by accident. It’s not luck. And it’s not chance,” Niblett said. “The guy works on catching every ball every way possible, and then torquing his body every way possible. It’s not like he just decided today to make that catch. He’s visualized that.”

Beyond the catches, coaches came to respect the physical playing style of a kid who grew up getting pushed around by his older brother.

In a rivalry game his senior season against nearby Vestavia Hills, Pickens reversed field after a route and leveled a cornerback — right into an outside linebacker — eliminating two defenders, to spring his fullback for another 20 yards.

Later that season against Mountain Brook, Pickens found a DB 40 yards from the line of scrimmage and blocked him completely off the field … and into the Mountain Brook cheerleaders.

Miles Holcomb, who coached Hoover’s quarterbacks and receivers, still plays that clip often to illustrate how the best player on the field can change the game even when he doesn’t get the ball.

“George was never a guy that stopped before the whistle,” Holcomb said. “That was something I just respected so much, because he was so good and so gifted athletically that he could have taken some plays off, and nobody would have even noticed. But he never did.”

While Pickens was a fierce, single-minded competitor on Friday nights, off the field, people gravitated toward his fun-loving personality and easy smile. Holcomb affectionately calls him a “goofball.”

“He was almost larger than life,” Holcomb said. “But he never acted like it. People just wanted to talk to him. His personality was just so infectious.”

Niblett would joke with Pickens, “Now, I need you to run fast on this route.”

“Scared fast or fast?” Pickens would respond with a smile.

Scared fast.

The moment that best sums up Pickens’ off-field persona came in the weight room. He was midway through a set of pull-ups when he unexpectedly stopped. Hold on one second.

“He reached down in his jogging pants and he broke out a cheese curl,” Kervin said, still laughing years later. “He eats it. Then he jumps back up and does his pull-ups.”

After Pickens helped the Buccaneers to back-to-back state titles in 2016 and 2017, Rivals.com rated him as the nation’s seventh-best recruit (No. 1 in Alabama) and second-best receiver. Offers flooded in, hoping to sway Pickens from the Auburn commitment he made as a sophomore.

Before Pickens’ senior season, Kervin was at an offseason camp at Auburn when then-Tigers offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey approached.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, man, you think George is gonna stick with us with his commitment?’” Kervin remembers. “I was like, ‘Hell, Chip, I don’t know if he’s gonna stick with us, man. You’re on your own.’

“Everybody was recruiting him his senior year (in high school). IMG wanted him. A lot of schools around our area wanted him.”

On national signing day in 2019, Pickens had narrowed his list to four: Auburn, LSU, Tennessee and Georgia.

Pickens said he woke up the morning of signing day still not completely sure where he was headed. At the 11th hour, he revealed the biggest stunner of the day when he flipped to Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs.

“That’s probably the craziest thing that happened to me,” Pickens said.

Even before Pickens set foot in Sanford Stadium for a game, he was already making his presence felt with a highlight-reel catch that lives in YouTube immortality.

In one of his first spring football practices … well, trying to describe the play doesn’t do it justice. Just watch.

That was just an appetizer. As a freshman, Pickens led the Bulldogs in TD catches with eight. He capped the season by reeling in 12 catches for 175 yards and a touchdown in the Sugar Bowl vs. Baylor to earn MVP honors.

A freshman season that put Pickens on draft boards also produced a blemish on Nov. 30, 2019 that some teams would hold against him for years.

He was suspended by the Bulldogs’ coaching staff for the first half of the regular-season finale against Georgia Tech. The receiver told The Athletic the punishment was for skipping tutoring sessions.

“My grades were good,” Pickens said. “It was just a sort of a tutoring checkup. … I would miss them.”

In the second half, Pickens quickly made his presence felt. He drew a pass interference flag on his first series to set up a touchdown and another on the next drive. He opened the next series with a 41-yard touchdown.

With the game out of hand, tempers flared between Pickens and Georgia Tech defensive back Tre Swilling. The two jawed after several plays, and Pickens said Swilling pushed him in the back on one snap.

“That’s when I kind of figured out that team was trying to get under my skin,” he said.

Then simmering tensions boiled over. Pickens and Swilling tangled. It appeared Swilling connected with an open hand to Pickens’ facemask. Pickens retaliated by throwing two punches, then grabbed Swilling by the facemask and dragged him into a padded wall behind the end zone.

“I was just blocking the guy, and he hit me in the face, right?” Pickens said. “No flags, too. And two face shots, too. … People don’t like being exploited, embarrassed.”

Pickens was ejected. Then the magnitude of the moment began to sink in. The SEC championship was the following week. By rule, Pickens would be suspended for the first half because of the ejection.

“As I actually get escorted to the locker room, I recognized, I was like, ‘Oh now we’ve got to play LSU next week,’” Pickens said.

In a sport built upon physicality and passion, fights happen. In August, Aaron Donald wielded two helmets during a training camp melee with the Bengals.

But for Pickens, that moment — and an incident where he squirted water at Tennessee quarterback Jarrett Guarantano — contributed to whispers about character concerns, a vague label that his high school coaches firmly dispute.

“I never understood that,” Holcomb said. “I’ve never been in any scenario around him where I feel like he had any malicious intent towards anybody.”

In Pittsburgh, the Steelers say Pickens has never crossed the line, or even approached it. He has not been flagged for a personal foul or unsportsmanlike conduct this season.

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“This guy is doing everything that we asked him to do,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “He’s playing football. A lot of people have incidents in the college background. I’m certainly not going to hold that against him. We did our due diligence where we’re completely comfortable with his character. He has displayed that since he’s been here.”

Regarding the idea that some have questioned Pickens’ character, Tomlin added, “I somewhat resent that.”

Two springs after Pickens’ practice catch jump-started his college hype train, another spring football moment threatened to derail his trajectory.

Pickens was running a basic slant when he crumpled to the turf, the ACL in his right knee torn. For one of the first times in his life, Pickens started to realize football was not forever.

“Just be in the football world for your time,” Pickens said. “When they say it’s going to end, I never thought like that until I tore my ACL.”

For many NFL-bound athletes, the injury would have spelled the end of their college career. Not Pickens. Hours after surgery, he set his sights on returning in time for a Georgia championship run.

“In my hotel room, I’d be jumping on one leg trying to cut,” Pickens said. “It wasn’t even fully well. I just got out of surgery. Even my doctor at school, he was like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re bouncing around and you tore your ACL.’”

Pickens said renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews told the receiver he hadn’t seen a knee recover that way since he repaired Adrian Peterson’s ACL in December 2011. The future Hall of Fame back returned eight months after surgery, won league MVP and came within 9 yards of breaking the NFL’s single-season rushing record.

Just over eight months after Pickens went under the knife, he was back on the field to join an undefeated Georgia team that appeared destined for the national title game. The Bulldogs ran their record to 12-0 in Pickens’ season debut Nov. 27 against Georgia Tech.

The following week, the perfect season went by the wayside when Alabama knocked off the Bulldogs, 41-24.

“I felt like, damn, I came back and we lost,” Pickens said. “I ain’t played the whole season and we’ve been winning. So is it me?”

Two weeks later, the Bulldogs met the Crimson Tide again in the national championship game. With Alabama leading 3-0 in the first half, Pickens made another career-defining play when he laid out for a 52-yard catch. That set the tone for a 33-18 Georgia victory over its rival to claim the title.

George Pickens got up smooth after the diving catch 🧼#NationalChampionship pic.twitter.com/fUBrlqk9vi

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) January 11, 2022

Still, questions about Pickens’ knee lingered into the pre-draft process. Because Pickens doesn’t need a lot of separation to make a catch, many wondered how fast he actually was. The knee injury added to that narrative.

But with a 4.47 40-yard dash at the NFL combine, the questions about his knee and his speed were snuffed out.

“That’s when I was proving people wrong,” Pickens said.

Now, back to draft day.

As Pickens watched receiver after receiver fly off the board, frustration festered. Pickens visited with many teams — including the Packers, Chiefs and Jaguars, who each had two first-round picks — before the draft. But they all chose to go in another direction.

By the time Claypool (of all people) stepped to the stage to announce the Steelers’ selection, Pickens had the fed-up look on his face that made him a viral sensation. Finally, when Pickens heard his name, he felt a sense of relief — and surprise.

“Totally surprised,” Pickens said. “The only time I saw the Steelers was at my pro day.”

What's wrong with George Pickens brain man 😭😭😭 love my WR1 still 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/Vn0UUEjWJR

— KE (@YSN_Honcho_) May 2, 2022

Almost from Day 1, Pickens began to earn the respect of his teammates and coaches.

One day in training camp, Tomlin challenged Pickens by putting Minkah Fitzpatrick on him in every one-on-one drill. The young receiver certainly held his own. Then, after Pickens’ toe-tapping touchdown against the Seahawks in the preseason, the All-Pro safety glowed about the rookie.

“His body control is something serious,” Fitzpatrick said. “You saw it (against Seattle) in the back of the end zone. Everything looks easy and natural to him.”

Tomlin points to Pickens’ love for the game as a reason why he’s excelling in all areas, not just being a receiver.

“He’s a competitor. The guys that love to play football, it shows up in everything that they do,” Tomlin said. “He’s good with the ball, he’s good without the ball. He’s a football player. He loves to play.”

During a recent workout, Pickens soared up the right seam, and Pickett’s dart sailed over the receiver’s left shoulder. The natural thing to do would be to make the catch with his hands under the ball.

Not Pickens.

He took his left hand over the top of the football, matched its speed and snagged it with one hand, like a snake striking its prey. Pickens somersaulted head over heels to complete the grab.

“That don’t make no damn sense,” receiver Diontae Johnson remembers saying.

Trying to describe the catch doesn’t even do it justice. But then again, that’s Pickens, the often memeable, infinitely retweetable receiver.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic. Photos: John Jones and Kyle Ross / Icon Sportswire; Joe Sargent / Getty Images)

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