The fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers have added three wide receivers to their organization since the team lost Thursday night to the Cleveland Browns might be a sign that they do not expect to have two of their starters for their Week 12 Sunday road game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
During the Thursday night road loss to the Browns, starting wide receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson both left that contest with concussions and neither returned. Additionally, Adam Schefter of ESPN reports on Monday that Smith-Schuster is also now dealing a knee injury that he sustained on the same play that he suffered the concussion on. He was also spotted wearing a knee brace recently at an event of his over the weekend.
We’ll find out more about the potential Week 12 statuses of Smith-Schuster and Johnson when Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin addresses the media on Tuesday. However, ahead of his press conference it appears as though there’s a very good chance that Smith-Schuster and Johnson are both likely to miss the Sunday game against the Bengals.
The Steelers signed wide receiver Deon Cain off the practice squad of the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday and on Monday the team signed wide receivers Quadree Henderson and Amara Darboh to the practice squad. By Saturday at 4 p.m. EST we could see either Henderson or Darboh signed to the 53-man roster and maybe even both. Even if just one of those two players are signed to the 53-man roster on Saturday it will be a sign that Smith-Schuster and Johnson might not be able to play Sunday against the Bengals.
Come Sunday’s kickoff against the Bengals, we could potentially see the Steelers dress five wide receivers for that contest and those five wide receivers might just be James Washington, Tevin Jones, Johnny Holton, Cain, and Henderson.
