Are the Steelers deep enough at wide receiver to win big?
PITTSBURGH — By sending Diontae Johnson to the Carolina Panthers in March, the Pittsburgh Steelers traded a wide receiver who accounted for 717 yards and five touchdowns in the 2023 season — good for 21% of all receiving yards and 31% of receiving yards among wide receivers and second most to George Pickens.
Johnson’s five scores, also tied for second most on the team with Pickens, accounted for 17% of the Steelers’ touchdowns last season.
Since then though, the Steelers have added more than 1,300 receiving yards and 14 touchdown receptions to their roster. The only problem? Those figures are the combined receiving yards of four players — three NFL wide receivers and one incoming rookie draft pick. Take out Roman Wilson’s stats from his final year at Michigan, and the Steelers’ three most prominent wide receiver additions in free agency have a combined 512 yards and four touchdowns.
New quarterback Russell Wilson has a clear No. 1 receiver in Pickens, who led the team with 1,140 receiving yards a year ago, but beyond the third-year wideout, the rest of the position group is a smorgasbord — and the options to add another featured receiver to a medley of role players are rapidly disappearing.
Of those four newcomers — Van Jefferson, Quez Watkins, Scott Miller and Wilson — none are a shoo-in to be a No. 2 receiver. The returning Steelers’ receiving corps beyond Pickens also lacks a clear-cut No. 2 option. The Steelers released Allen Robinson II, who had 280 receiving yards and no touchdowns in his lone season with the team, earlier this offseason, making 2022 fourth-round pick Calvin Austin III as the only returning receiver who recorded any receiving yards in 2023 — his first season on the field after suffering a season-ending injury during his rookie training camp in 2022. In addition to Austin, the Steelers also currently have five receivers on the roster who didn’t have a single catch in 2023.
Though new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith often utilizes tight ends and Swiss Army knife weapons such as running back Cordarrelle Patterson in a system rooted in the ground game, the Steelers still need a complement of wide receivers to stretch the field. They have the framework for a functional, position flexible wide receiver group, one that features Pickens as a vertical threat and yards after catch machine, Jefferson as another vertical option, Wilson as a slot receiver and blocker and Austin as an undersized, yet
