AFC Notes: George Pickens, Mike Tomlin, Deshaun Watson, Browns, Steelers

Browns

The Browns suffered a disastrous 34-14 loss to the Washington Commanders in Week 5, where Deshaun Watson had just 125 passing yards and one touchdown. Watson shot back at suggestions that his confidence is shaken. 

“Hell no,” Watson said, via Daniel Oyefusi of ESPN. “I’ll always be Deshaun Watson, regardless of whoever else says otherwise.”

Browns HC Kevin Stefanski thinks their offensive problems go far past Watson.

“This is not a one-person issue on offense,” Stefanski said. “We have the guys. We have the coaches. We will get it fixed.”

Stefanski wants to find ways to have their offense play cleaner and execute their game plan. 

“We need to score more points than we’re scoring right now,” Stefanski said. “So, we need to make sure that we’re giving our guys an opportunity to execute the game plan, whatever it may be, run or pass, and just play a clean football game, take care of the rock, score some points. But that’s our focus, less so outlining what we believe the identity to be. We just have to go play clean football.”

Steelers

Steelers HC Mike Tomlin said there’s no cause for alarm after WR George Pickens appeared in just 34 snaps against the Cowboys in week 5, calling it a “snap management” matter. 

“Just a snap management thing and an effort to be more productive in today’s game regarding analytics,” Tomlin said, via the team’s YouTube. “We do it across a lot of positions, particularly when you look at the totality of a 17-game schedule. I’d imagine Cam Heyward, for example, is playing less snaps than he has. Just trying to grow and trying to get optimum productivity among some individuals and going about the best means of doing so, and, so, that’s probably a reflection of the snap totality of last week.”

• Tomlin said he hasn’t addressed Pickens after his violent moment against Cowboys CB Jourdan Lewis when pulling down the cornerback by his facemask: “I just don’t think it aids that growth and the development to address it in open settings such as this regarding his behavior. I am aware of that and obviously, that has been and will continue to be addressed.” (Brooke Pryor)

Steelers

Steelers DB DeShon Elliott said the team’s issues against the Cowboys came down to alignment and communication defensively.

“They’re a good team, but we had a lot of busts,” Elliott said, via Post Gazette. “We weren’t communicating. Things weren’t going the way we planned for it to go when it came to sorting things out. We weren’t on the same page. It’s fixable, but these are things we can’t keep doing. Some things are repetitive. Communication should never be a problem in the secondary, or the defense period. We’re with each other every day.”

Steelers DB Minkah Fitzpatrick alluded to the defensive calls being too complicated and advocated for simplifying the defense.

“We have to play simple defense,” Fitzpatrick said. “We have a lot of talent in the secondary, a lot of guys who can play man and play zone. We just have to make a play call, simplify it and it will allow us to play fast.”

Elliott said the team was caught off guard when Dallas opted to run the ball late in the game.

“We definitely didn’t think they’d run the ball in the four-minute offense at the end of the game,” Elliott said. “But they probably thought we knew they were going to throw the ball, so they did the opposite. And they did it at a high rate and efficiently. That’s not us.”