PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – New Steelers receivers coach Zach Azzanni isn’t screwing around. If he sees something that is wrong, he’ll let anyone know about it from Scotty Miller to George Pickens. He’s trying to bring a culture and edge back to the Steelers, or at least his group, that he says was missing.
Pickens was caught on video and posted to social media not taking well to criticism or some might just call coaching. Last week, Pickens said ‘Coach Z is a great guy, high energy’. Pickens said he dealt with that in college and it’s just a different personality.
On Tuesday in an interview with 93.7 The Fan and a few other outlets, Azzanni said he doesn’t apologize for being a tough coach. He’s doing what he was told to do.
“Everybody wants to make this gi-normous thing of George,” Azzanni said. “Me and George are great. Listen, it’s football. It’s hard. My job as a coach is to coach, critique and correct.
Sometimes as players that isn’t always a fun thing. My job is also to push these guys to a place maybe they don’t think they can go.”
“Sometimes that is uncomfortable, George knows it, I know it, the players know it. We are all going to hold each other to a standard and we are not going to fall below that standard. That’s why George has been getting better.”
You just have to attend a Steelers practice to see Azzanni’s intensity. From the most mundane drills, the new receivers coach expects perfection and energy. He says he will be up his players’ tail all the time and admits sometimes that’s not fun. If the players think he’s just hard on them, he said to talk to his kids.
Azzanni’s pushing Pickens like he hasn’t been pushed before, at least outside of the University of Georgia. Azzanni says they are on the same page and while they will have occasional issues, it’s about improvement.
“Me and him are great, I love how everyone throws a big deal about it,” Azzanni said at St. Vincent College. “George is awesome. He’s been awesome. He continues to get better and I’m pleased with where he is going.”
We’ve seen more red zone opportunities for Pickens in practice. This spring into summer he’s worked at times in the slot to improve his versatility and he’s expected to block when needed, regardless that he led the NFL last year in yards-per-catch at 18.1 and is by far the team’s most dangerous play-making threat. Pickens gets no special treatment.
“George wants to be the best, the only way that is going to happen is if he does something that isn’t in his wheelhouse, that I let him know about it,” Azzanni said. “That’s my job. That’s what Coach Tomlin hired me to do is get these guys to go in a direction that maybe they don’t think they can go. His willingness has been awesome.”
Azzanni was most recently the receivers coach with the Jets (2023), previously with Denver and Chicago. He worked in college at Tennessee, Wisconsin, Florida and Central Michigan, when Antonio Brown was there.
“We are building a culture,” Azzanni said. “A hard edge, things that quite honestly have kind of fallen off a little in the past. We are trying to get back to that Steeler football. They’ve been doing a good job of buying in and I’m proud of them. We’ve had our days, good and bad, but for the most part I see ascending in that area.”
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