The 2022 season presented a year of transition for the Pittsburgh Steelers, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. With the retirement of 18-year veteran quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, such change was inevitable, but the Steelers believe they are back on track this year with Kenny Pickett firmly established at the top of the pecking order.
The team’s most veteran wide receiver, 2021 Pro Bowler Diontae Johnson, believes having that stability and working relationship with Pickett year will be a big advantage. “You don’t have to think about who is throwing you the ball”, he told Bo Marchionte for college2pro.com.
“You can kind of prepare like I got such and such as a quarterback. Helps you know what to do”, he explained. “I’m not saying anything negative toward any of [the other quarterbacks], it just helps you to know what to expect. So, I feel like that has helped me out a lot”.
Mitch Trubisky opened the 2022 season as the starter for the first four games before head coach Mike Tomlin made the decision to pull him during halftime of that fourth game. Pickett played the rest of the way, at which point he and Johnson had hardly gotten in any work at all together during the offseason.
Thrust into the fire feet first, which Pickett later said was probably better for him, he did admit that it was a challenge throughout the season trying to build a rapport on the fly. He talked about sneaking in practice reps on the side with his fellow starters, even on the sidelines during games.
“Repetition is for real”, the veteran wide receiver said, who did have a better rapport with Trubisky early on, having worked together with the first-team offense throughout the offseason. He saw double-digit targets in each of the first three games, which Trubisky played start to finish, making 21 catches for 196 yards. He would only have double-digit targets five more times on the year, including the game against the Carolina Panthers Trubisky started.
“If you don’t have those repetitions the timing isn’t going to be down”, Marchionte quotes him as saying. “If you don’t have the timing down, then the ball is going to be all over the place. I feel like, knowing who you got, that has helped me out personally”.
For what it’s worth, Johnson does seem to be the sort of player who is only at his best when he is well-prepared for whatever circumstances he is facing. That’s one of the reasons that he trains so much during the offseason, through which he was able to clean up some of the more worrying aspects of his game.
I do believe he could be the biggest beneficiary of this offseason simply for the budding relationship forming with his quarterback. He had that with Roethlisberger. Now he will have that with Pickett, and both he and the fans can get the bitter taste of that 2022 season out of their mouths.
