Now that the Steelers have turned their offense over to rookie Kenny Pickett, the quarterback and his receivers have to be firmly on the same page.
Chase Claypool said on Thursday that he and Pickett have been spending extra time together during practice doing just that.
“That’s what we’ve been working on in between periods,” Claypool told Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “During special teams, we tried to spot up, run through some routes, or just talk through some routes — see what we’re both thinking and then meet in the middle and try to get that timing down as fast as possible.”
But Claypool also noted that he and Pickett took plenty of reps together during the spring and summer.
“Some of us have had a pretty good amount of reps with him anyway, just because that’s how we kind of rotated the quarterbacks early on in camp,” Claypool said. “So, I think we’re not starting from behind too much or anything.”
Pickett will make his first start this week against one of the league’s top defenses, as the Steelers head to Buffalo to play the Bills.