Pittsburgh Steelers make baffling WR decision in Week 2

The Pittsburgh Steelers still have something else to fix in the wide receiver room other than the production behind top wideout George Pickens. Pickens has been one of the better wide receivers in the NFL through two weeks by most metrics, handily winning matchups against Patrick Surtain II and A.J. Terrell.

However, the Steelers are still not playing Pickens as much as they were in the past. For two weeks, Pickens has been playing a career-low snap share. In Week 2, he played just 72 percent of the snaps, the lowest of his career. Meanwhile, Van Jefferson played 81 percent of the snaps.

BETTING:

The Steelers take Pickens off the field when they go heavy. When they need someone to be the lone wide receiver in 13 personnel, the wide receiver is almost never Pickens. Sometimes, it is Jefferson, but it was Scotty Miller last week.

All that is to say that the Steelers have still force-fed Pickens the ball whenever he is in the game. However, his chances have been fewer and far between because of the lack of snaps across the wide receiver corps.

The rest of the wide receivers outside of Pickens have just five receptions for 28 yards over the season's first two games. If Pittsburgh had viable options outside of Pickens, the snap counts could make sense, but Arthur Smith did the same thing with top wide receiver Drake London a year ago. So, this might just be a function of what Smith does offensively to try and get everyone involved.