Hear me out: A Steelers offense that has no receivers. It’s all just tight ends, running backs, fullbacks and H-backs.

You may have dreamed of such a roster. In fact, you’ve expressed it many times on social media.

Let’s be honest, when was the last time the Steelers and their fans got along well with a wide receiver? Hines Ward? Yes, but he won Super Bowls. Plus, social media didn’t exist for most of his career. Therefore, you may have been unaware of the time he held out of training camp, a transgression punishable by eternal damnation in today’s NFL landscape.

• Santonio Holmes: He went from a Super Bowl XLIII hero to a Tampa nightclub to the New York Jets all within a year and a half.
• Mike Wallace: He held out of training camp in 2012. Plus, he was a one-trick pony. He also turned down a decent contract from the Steelers. That was okay, though, because they turned around and offered that same contract to Antonio Brown, a true team player and an all-around good guy.
• Manny Sanders: He fumbled against the Ravens when he had nothing around him but turf, failed to catch a two-point conversion against the Ravens, and then conned a few teams into giving him more money as a free agent.
• Antonio Brown: He went from Jerry Rice to Hannibal Lecter during the 2019 offseason.
• Diontae Johnson: He literally dropped every pass and ran backward when he managed to catch one. He earned some points when he fought with Mitch Trubisky at halftime of a Week 4 game against the Jets in 2022. But he spent all those points on a fumble he failed to jump on in a matchup at Cincinnati last year.
• Chase Claypool: He went from D.K. Metcalf to a jerk all within a matter of one offseason.
• JuJu Smith-Schuster: I went out of order with him because he really should have been in Pittsburgh for a decade. He was a team player, a fixture in the community and someone who never got in trouble off the field. Unfortunately, he was a Steelers receiver, so we took off the-field things that normal people do–social media activity–and used them to vilify him. Seriously, Smith-Schuster could have been an all-time fan-favorite in Pittsburgh, but he’ll now forever be lumped in with the toxic feelings the Steelers and their supporters started to develop for receivers at the dawn of the social media age.

George Pickens, a second-round pick out of Georgia in the 2022 NFL Draft, is the latest receiver the fans want to see leave town. Like all of the previously-mentioned wide-outs (except for JuJu), Pickens isn’t blameless for this. In fact, he appeared to be dogging it during Sunday’s showdown with the Cowboys at Acrisure Stadium. Since that night–a heartbreaking loss in the final seconds–footage has surfaced of Pickens jogging while running routes on plays where he evidently knew he wasn’t getting the ball. Maybe that was why he was only on the field for 59 percent of the Steelers’ offensive snaps. Head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game that it was simply “snap management,” a seemingly bs sentiment that he doubled-down on while again being asked about the matter at his weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Snap management for  a 23-year old? It doesn’t add up. Then again, neither have Pickens’s stats through five weeks. Perhaps that’s why he wore eye black that read: “Open “bleeping” Always.”

I mean, I could see Tomlin shadow-benching Pickens for the eye black, alone, but he acted like he didn’t even know about it.

What’s the deal with Pickens? Why limit the snaps of your best skill-position player on an offense that needs every advantage at its disposal?

Anyway, while I don’t condone a player dogging it (remember when he didn’t block on that running play in the loss to the Colts last December?), I can certainly understand why Pickens would be disgruntled. To repeat a sentiment of mine from last season: Pickens is a sports car, and the Steelers are using him like a John Deer tractor. That man needs to be the focal point of the offense each and every week. It shouldn’t be the running game. It shouldn’t be Pat Freiermuth, Darnell Washington or Connor Heyward. It should be Pickens.

Is Pickens open bleeping always? That’s debatable. He doesn’t seem to get much separation from those trying to cover him. Then again, he wins most of the battles with those trying to cover him, even when they’re covering him like a blanket.

Besides, who can know for sure just how good Pickens is at getting open? To repeat a sentiment that was held by many last year: This Steelers offense is Saturday-ish. Yes, there is a new offensive coordinator named Arthur Smith, but the results are the same–or maybe worse–than they were when his name was Matt Canada and Randy Fichtner.

This Steelers offense just flat-out sucks. It’s unimaginative. It’s predictable. It’s boring. It’s averaging 18.4 points a game through five weeks.

The offense has been horrible since the moment Ben Roethlisberger suffered his major elbow injury in Week 2 of the 2019 season.

And that brings me to a larger point: Can you blame any Steelers receiver who has come through here over the past five years for ultimately becoming disgruntled? Yes, it was fair to blame Brown during the Killer Bs era. After all, he was more prolific than any receiver in the history of the NFL for a six-year period, but he never shut up about wanting the damn ball. As for the others who have come along since? I’d be disgruntled, too.

Receivers want the damn ball. It’s like what they’re known for and stuff.

“So what did you think of the game yesterday, {first name redacted}?”

“To tell you the truth, {first name redacted}, I’m a little pissed off.”

“Why?”

“I only caught one pass.”

“What would you rather have, a win or a lot of catches?”

“I’d like to think we could do both.”

Can you imagine that exchange happening today? You don’t have to imagine it, since variations of it seem to occur between receivers and coaches on a regular basis. It is never received well (no pun intended). Anyway, that exchange took place at some point during the Steelers 1979 campaign, and it involved John Stallworth and Chuck Noll. That’s right, even Stallworth wanted the damn ball. Lynn Swann wanted the damn ball. In fact, there was a time during the 1976 season (the one where Terry Bradshaw got dropped on his head by that Turkey from Cleveland) when the team could barely bring itself to throw the damn ball at all. Passes were so scarce with Mike “No Touchdowns” Kruczek under center that both Stallworth and Swann stood and applauded one day during a film session when one of them was shown catching a pass in the previous game.

Can you imagine two Steelers receivers mockingly applauding during a film session in 2024? Yikes.

The Steelers problem with diva (aka talented) receivers likely won’t be fixed until their problem with quarterbacks is solved. They can bring in Davante Adams or Brandon Aiyuk, and it would only be a matter of time before he became disgruntled while trying to be an elite wide-out in this horrific offense.

Until then, they should think about my plan of just going with tight ends, running backs, fullbacks and H-backs.