PITTSBURGH — Steelers president Art Rooney II has settled for high-end mediocrity as the franchise calling card. He apparently will not make a coaching change.

The Steeler Way is to barely exceed chronically low expectations and either miss the playoffs or get blown out of the first round.

If Rooney is afraid of becoming the Jets, Raiders or Cardinals, somebody should tell him that his team already keeps company with those three, plus the Bears, Panthers, Broncos and Dolphins, in this dubious category: most consecutive years without a playoff win.

We're up to eight and counting for the Steelers, who haven't even been competitive in a playoff game since 2016.

But there is something Rooney could do, at least in service of restoring order to the cause. He could put an end to the ridiculous George Pickens saga.

If it isn't the organizational plan already, Rooney should tell Mike Tomlin that Pickens will not return next season and order general manager Omar Khan to find the best available trade partner, assuming there is one. It's tough to win with players like Pickens, and Tomlin, based on all available evidence, has mostly enabled him.

We know how it goes with Tomlin and problematic receivers. Once he starts to lose them, they're gone. He is unable to reel them back in. All of them are traded — Santonio Holmes, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Chase Claypool and Diontae Johnson (who is apparently trying to get waived or traded by every team in the league).

The trick, it seems, is to get as much production as possible before they become unsalvageable. It sure looks like we're at the tipping point with Pickens, a wildly talented player who has helped the Steelers win some games. He has one year left on his contract, which means he's a candidate for an extension. If the Steelers keep him, I'm not sure which would be worse: paying him or not paying him. Either could lead to a poor outcome.

Big money is what coincided with the downfalls of Brown and Johnson. You might remember Ryan Clark saying Brown changed once he got paid. Then again, if you don't pay Pickens, imagine the troubles at training camp as he goes into the final year of a puny rookie deal.

It's almost impossible to imagine the Pickens story taking a turn for the better, although Tomlin tried to sell the idea that Pickens, while still needing to improve his habits, "covered some ground" on the behavior front this season.

Covered some ground?

We're talking about a guy who openly quit on routes against Dallas, wrote the F word on his face that night in a nationally televised game, lost his mind on the final play in Cleveland — preferring to jostle with a Browns defensive back and then Browns fans rather than fulfill his assignment — often needed sideline babysitting, jawed with home fans, committed mindless penalties, had one of the worst games you'll ever see in the regular-season finale, and, according to Mike DeFabo of The Athletic, showed up late for the Chiefs game on Christmas Day.

If that's improved behavior, I'd hate to have seen a backslide.

The Steelers arrogantly believe they have the kind of environment that helps a guy like Pickens mature and thrive when it's actually the opposite. Rooney is responsible for that.

Here's the thing: Nobody can say the Steelers weren't warned. The Athletic's Bruce Feldman reported before the 2022 draft that NFL scouts and assistant coaches told him to be wary of Pickens, who lasted until the 52nd pick.

One scout: "There's a lot of upside, but he can't get out of his own way. He's been enabled his whole life."

One coach: "I wouldn't touch him."

Then, in his rookie year, with his team ahead in a game in Atlanta, there was Pickens, yelling on the sidelines to get him the blankin' ball. And there was Cam Heyward, forced to babysit. And there was Tomlin, defending Pickens after the game.

"I'm not going to make that a negative ... people talking about him expressing frustrations and stuff and trying to make it a negative storyline," Tomlin said. "I laugh at that."

He's not laughing anymore. After Pickens' rookie year, Tomlin was asked about the "red flags" prior to the draft and said, "I believe (Pickens) got mischaracterized pre-draft, and that's why I'm combative and defensive about him."

That led to Year 2, in which Pickens refused to block at the goal line in Indianapolis (later explaining he didn't want to risk injury), posted "free me" on social media after a dreadful performance against the Titans and had his effort questioned by analyst Kirk Herbstreit during a nationally televised game against the Patriots.

Peter King, at the end of last season, said this on 93.7 The Fan: "It bothers me that Diontae Johnson and George Pickens do not play all out on every snap. Somehow, some way, that must get fixed."

Narrator: It didn't get fixed.

That's why you had a respected voice, such as former Steelers tackle Max Starks, saying this on the Steelers Radio Network after the Dallas debacle: "I need wide receivers to stop thinking they're bigger than the game itself," Starks said.

"We all know who that wide receiver is. We've talked about him over the last couple of years. He needs to grow up."

I suppose it's possible that part of Tomlin's refusal to publicly reprimand Pickens is that he wants to protect his trade value.

Great. Rooney should tell Tomlin he did a fine job with that.

And then order a trade.

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