Riskiest NFL offseason move made by the Steelers in 2024.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming off of a rather successful 2023 season in which they advanced to the playoffs and won ten games. During the 2024 NFL offseason, they undoubtedly made some intriguing personnel changes.
September will see a drastically different Steelers team thanks to a total overhaul of the quarterback room. Russell Wilson and Justin Fields have replaced Mason Rudolph, Mitchell Trubisky, and Kenny Pickett. Wilson fared better in 2023 than he did in his first season in the Mile High City, but Pittsburgh is undoubtedly hoping he looks a lot better than he did during his brief two-year stay with the Denver Broncos.
Even with Wilson’s poor quarterback play last season, the Steelers managed double digit victories and advanced to the postseason, so things couldn’t be much worse, can they? The question then becomes whether Pittsburgh has provided Wilson (or Fields, if the Steelers choose to pursue that option) with sufficient supporting depth. Wilson’s supporting group is currently much in doubt, especially in light of the Steelers’ transfer of wide receiver Diontae Johnson to the Carolina Panthers.
Why the Steelers took a gamble by moving Diontae Johnson
I understand, Johnson was a letdown for Pittsburgh. After earning the Pro Bowl in 2021, he had two disappointing seasons and behavioral problems. However, Johnson only brought the Steelers cornerback Donte Jackson and a sixth-round draft pick. Jackson is a passable player, but his record of injuries is somewhat mixed, and he serves primarily as a complementary player. Pittsburgh clearly wanted to get rid of Johnson, but the issue is that Wilson’s receiving corps is severely thin as a result.
At receiver, the Steelers have George Pickens and, well, not much else. Roman Wilson, a wide receiver for the University of Michigan, was selected in the third round of the NFL Draft, but as we all know, rookie picks are often unpredictable, particularly those selected in the third or later rounds. Is Roman Wilson truly going to be Pittsburgh’s number-two receiver? Or is it the hope that someone like Calvin Austin or Van Jefferson will step up?
In any case, the Steelers aren’t exactly flush with wealth at the position. That basically means it’s Pickens or bust, which adds to the oddity of the Jackson transaction. It seems like Pittsburgh is going to make a deal to get a top-tier wide receiver like Brandon Aiyuk, but the Steelers don’t usually do it. Big-name receivers are not traded for by them. It’s simply not how they do things. The receivers you see on Pittsburgh’s depth chart right now are probably the ones the Steelers will start the 2024 season with.
Russ can’t be feeling too comfortable about that. Ironically, Wilson may have had more alternatives overall in Denver than he does in Pittsburgh right now. He had Jerry Jeudy and Courtland Sutton there, and Tim Patrick was a good tertiary option for him in 2023. Pat Freiermuth is a nice tight end for the Steelers, and Jaylen Warren and Najee Harris are capable of catching passes out of the backfield. But a quarterback’s dependence on his wide receivers is common.
Pickens is excellent, and at the close of the previous season, he even appeared to straighten out. But with Johnson playing elsewhere, Wilson will need more than simply Pickens, who will likely face a lot of double coverage going forward. The Johnson trade bothers me a lot because it seems like the Steelers had no backup plan. A receiver was not signed by them during free agency. They made no exchanges for one. Not at the beginning of the draft. They simply departed Pickens with a huge hole behind them.
Wilson isn’t quite the same signal-caller he was when he played for the Seattle Seahawks, so you would think Pittsburgh would want to take every precaution to make sure the 35-year-old has an abundance of weapons available to him. Rather, the Steelers decided to end the day after selecting a receiver in the third round. Roman Wilson might just take the world by surprise. Perhaps he will prove to be a reliable No. 2 option behind Pickens, and maybe Russ will get along well with him. However, it appears that Russ is under a great deal of pressure from the Steelers to handle things alone. That would have been OK five years ago, but what about now? He most likely needs assistance.