George Pickens is unquestionably the Pittsburgh Steelers' top wide receiver.

That was hard to tell, though, last Sunday night when the Steelers lost to the Dallas Cowboys 20-17. Pickens played a season-low 34 snaps.

While targeted a team-high seven times by quarterback Justin Fields, Pickens had just three receptions for 26 yards.

Pickens' frustration showed on the final play of the game when he threw Cowboys cornerback Joudan Lewis by his facemask to the ground. Lewis appeared to be taunting Pickens after recovering a wayward Steelers' lateral as time expired.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin admitted that he talked to Pickens about the incident. However, Tomlin declined to say if Pickens was punished.

"Certainly, there are things that I'm open to addressing and will and do," Tomlin said during his weekly press conference. "I just don't detail it in settings like this, because it's business between he and I in terms of his growth and development as a player and as a man. I just don't think it aids that growth in 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."

Pickens wore eye black during the game saying he was open and including a vulgar word.

Perhaps that was the reason Pickens played on just 59% of the Steelers' offensive snaps. He had played 86% the previous week in a loss to the Indianapolis Colts and at least 68% in each of the Steelers' first games.

Thus, it will be interesting to see how much Pickens plays Sunday when the Steelers (3-2) host the Las Vegas Raiders at Acrisue Stadium.

Tomlin, though, insisted the reduced snaps last week were part of the Steelers' game plan.

"Regarding analytics, we do it across a lot of positions, particularly when you look at the totality of a 17-game schedule," Tomlin said. "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."

Pickens leads the Steelers in receptions (23), pass targets (36) and yards receiving (310). However, Pickens is not a particularly strong blocker and part of his low snap count is the result of Tomlin's reluctance to use him on running plays.

"Oftentimes he's not at the point of attack in the blocking game, blocking responsibilities within our scheme are more handled by guys like Van Jefferson, to be quite honest with you," Tomlin said.