“I have a lot of respect for it”: George Pickens is grateful that Chris Henry Jr. models his game after him

In sport, things come full circle quite often. Life has a way of behaving like that.

For Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens, that came full circle at Elite Week, an event hosted by GOAT Farm Sports that trains quarterbacks and receivers at Del Valle High School in El Paso, Texas.

Pickens, who is entering his third year in the NFL, modeled parts of his game after the late Chris Henry, a former standout wide receiver at West Virginia and later with the Cincinnati Bengals.

It turns out that Henry’s son, Chris Henry Jr., himself a wide receiver and a five-star recruit from Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, has chosen to attend Ohio State, modeling his game after Pickens.

It’s a small world.

“For me personally, it feels good that he’s that specific person because I always watched his dad in West Virginia a long time ago,” Pickens said of Henry Jr., who modeled his game after him, according to an Instagram video from Overtime. “You really have to know football to know about your dad, you know me?”

“I’ve always watched his dad a lot and I really respect that he patterns his game after me. I kind of pattern my game after his dad. It’s kind of crazy. It’s crazy.”

That’s crazy considering Pickens is only 23 years old. But football is a small world, and Henry, the Steelers’ third-year receiver at 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, is a good player to model his game after.

Henry’s father was a problem for defense at both the college and NFL levels.

At West Virginia, Henry was a dominant force from 2003 to 2004, although the Mountaineers coaching staff struggled to keep him under control. Henry was the Big East Conference Freshman of the Year in 2003 after catching 41 passes for 1,006 yards and 10 touchdowns. In 2004, Henry caught 52 passes for 872 yards with 12 touchdowns and declared for the NFL Draft.

Although his numbers were impressive, he had a checkered past. In 2004, he was ejected against Rutgers for multiple unsportsmanlike conduct. WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez subsequently declared him “a disgrace to himself and the program,” and Henry was suspended for the Backyard Brawl against Pittsburgh that year.

After his time in Morgantown, Henry was selected by the Bengals in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. In five seasons with the Bengals, Henry appeared in 55 games and caught 119 passes for 1,826 yards and 21 touchdowns. His best season was 2005, when he caught 36 passes for 305 yards and nine touchdowns.

In his only playoff appearance as a rookie in 2005, Henry caught a 66-yard pass on the first play of the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ironically, that was the play on which quarterback Carson Palmer tore his ACL after being hit by defensive end Kimo von Oelhoffen, which changed the course of the game. The Steelers went on to win the game and eventually the Super Bowl that season.

During his NFL career, Henry had difficulty staying out of trouble off the field. Early in the 2006 season, Henry was suspended two games for violating the league’s drug and conduct rules. Before the 2007 season, he was suspended eight games for violating the NFL’s conduct rules.

After being released by the Bengals in March 2008 following another off-field incident, Henry was brought back on a two-year deal that summer due to injuries at his position. He played for the Bengals in 2008 and half of 2009 before being placed on the injured list on November 9 of that year after suffering a broken forearm in a game against the Baltimore Ravens.

Just over a month later, Henry tragically fell from the back of a moving truck and died at the age of 26. It was later revealed that Henry had developed CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) during his playing career.

His legacy lives on in his son, who is considered the top WR recruit in the country. He will take his talents over the next few seasons to Ohio State, which has become a WR hotbed for the NFL over the past decade. He will hone his skills under former NFL receiver Brian Hartline for the Buckeyes while modeling his game after Pickens.