The cope is real with this one.
George Pickens had himself a night on Thursday Night Football, and not in a good way. The Steelers receiver is coming under fire on Friday morning for his lack of focus what would have been the game-winning Hail Mary, then in the locker room he took a massive dose of copium before blaming the weather for the loss.
#Steelers WR George Pickens on the loss to the #Browns:
— Alan Saunders (@ASaunders_PGH) November 22, 2024
“The conditions played a huge, huge part in today’s game. I don’t really think the Cleveland Browns are a good team at all.” pic.twitter.com/SifgqKHBIR
Saying “I think the conditions kind of saved them today” is a pretty wild take coming from a Pittsburgh player who routinely needs to deal with identical weather conditions in the winter. Also, it’s not like the snow forced him to fight with Greg Newsome on the Hail Mary play, rather than actually try and post up for a catch and potentially win the game.
George Pickens fighting Greg Newsome during the Hail Mary LMFAO pic.twitter.com/1QT1sN1w5o
— Clay Fink (@clay_fink) November 22, 2024
Meanwhile in the Browns’ locker room players were overheard trash talking Pickens for his lack of effort and focus on the play.
Overheard in the Browns postgame locker room: “He fake tough. He wasn’t even going for the ball.” https://t.co/TJiOGHhr5T
— Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) November 22, 2024
There’s no other way to spin this for Pittsburgh than embarrassing. They lost to a 2-8 Browns team and squandered their chance to put a vice grip on the AFC North ahead of the playoffs. Now the door is open for the Ravens to storm back in, while Cleveland gets to surf on the good vibes of sticking it to a division rival.
The snow wasn’t the problem on Thursday night, effort was.