After Pittsburgh wide receivers picked up two taunting penalties in a 24-17 victory over the Los Angeles Rams last week, Steelers running back Najee Harris said NFL officials were getting too uptight over “a little chit-chat.”

“We’re just competing,” Harris said on Thursday. “It’s competitors. The game is tight, you want to make plays, and you might have a little chit-chat. And we just got to find a balance where when it’s too much and when to stop. And that’s just something we can fix easily – discipline. …

“Receivers and DBs, that’s just normal. They’re going to do that on every play. Sometimes I think they can be a little bit too soft, as in the refs. But it’s football. People are going to talk (expletive).”

Pittsburgh’s George Pickens and Diontae Johnson were flagged for taunting in the fourth quarter against the Rams.

A former Hoover High School star, Pickens had five receptions for 107 yards against Los Angeles. He also had an illegal -blindside-block penalty in the first quarter that caused Rams defensive back Russ Yeast to leave the game briefly.

In his second NFL season, Pickens said he thought Los Angeles had the first defensive players who were seeking to irritate him during the game.

“A game like this showed me, like, they’re kind of looking for me for trying to mess up and guys are antagonizing me more,” Pickens said, “because today is the first day I seen anything like that. Guys really just trying to get me out of the game or get under my skin deliberately.

“All I can really say is just keep fighting hard. That’s all you can do in football.”

Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said he appreciates the fire, but he doesn’t want the Steelers to be the ones burned.

“We got to clean up some things from the management of our emotions,” Tomlin said, “but I would much rather say whoa than sic’em. We got some guys that are competitors. They just got to compete in the appropriate and mature and professional way.

“We used it as a learning experience. It’s good to learn while sitting at 4-2 as opposed to 3-3.”

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The Steelers play a 5-2 team when the Jacksonville Jaguars come to Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh for a noon CDT kickoff on Sunday.

In the 2021 NFL Draft, the Steelers selected Harris from Alabama at No. 24. With the next pick, Jacksonville chose Clemson running back Travis Etienne.

Tomlin said both teams got the right back.

Etienne’s style of running fits the Jaguars, Tomlin said, “particularly because they went and also got his quarterback. And so they operate a lot out of shotgun, and he was a sidecar runner in Clemson and he’s doing very similar things in Jacksonville. (Quarterback) Trevor Lawrence’s mobility is a component that you have to deal with, not only in terms of just playmaking but schematically, as it was at Clemson, so there’s a lot of reasons why he’s a perfect fit for those guys in the same ways that Naj was the perfect fit for us.”

Etienne missed his first season with the Jaguars because of an injury while Harris went to the Pro Bowl as a rookie.

Since the start of the 2022 season, Harris has run for 1,334 yards and eight touchdowns on 349 carries and caught 49 passes for 281 yards and three touchdowns and Etienne has run for 1,629 yards and 12 touchdowns on 347 carries and caught 59 passes for 512 yards and no touchdowns.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.