Welcome to the terrible take committee podcast telling Steelers nation what's on our mind. I'm Josh Carney.

We don't often get to hear from Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin midweek ahead of a game, especially after his weekly press conference.

But thanks to second-year wide receiver George Pickens's bizarre media session Tuesday from

the locker room, well the fan base and the media got to hear from the longtime head coach on Wednesday.

Unsurprisingly, Tomlin addressed the Pickens situation.

He tried to get out in front of it with a statement to open up the session with the media about how

Pippins is a young player maturing growing etc etc. It was all the usual

expected stuff but one comment Tomlin made that was beyond frustrating, at least to me, was

that Pickens is going to play Saturday against the Cincinnati Bengals at Acresher Stadium, almost as if nothing happened.

I understand that as Dave Bryan laid out on the Wednesday terrible podcast that it would be

rather difficult to sit-pickins with just five receivers on the roster,

and one of them being Miles Boykin, a special teams-only receiver.

But the Steelers and Tomlin specifically have to send a message to Pickens.

That starts with taking playing time away.

Obviously things aren't getting through to him behind closed doors.

It's understandable that he's frustrated with the offense in the lack of production.

But he does himself and his teammates and coaches, for that matter, a disservice with his attitude and effort on the field

and his disdain for the media off of it.

Yes, he might be 22 years old and is experiencing real hardship from a football perspective for the first time in his career.

But the professionalism and maturity is greatly lacking and it's alarming period.

Being professional with the media, even giving the canned answers and

cliche lines in response to tough questions questions is perfectly fine.

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