Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: WR Diontae Johnson
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The veteran wide receiver is simply going about his business and doing his job during training camp. He’s doing it well, based on the observations of our eyes and ears in training camp, Alex Kozora, which is to be expected.
While all of the attention may be paid to the flashier players who are more likely to make viral catches—yes, we’re talking about George Pickens here, I might as well just write it out—arguably no pass-catcher has had a better training camp so far for the Steelers than the one who is being paid the most money. As should be expected.
According to Alex Kozora’s charting, Johnson has caught 12 of the 13 passes thrown his way so far for 160 yards and three touchdowns. Only Cody White and Calvin Austin III have more yards, though not necessarily with the same opportunities or against the same level of competition.
Kozora described Johnson’s training camp performance thus far as “quietly excellent”, noting that he is winning in two critical areas of the field—in the intermediate spaces as well as in the red zone. Given his zero touchdowns a year ago, the latter is certainly good to hear, though winning his routes was never the problem.
It seems very likely that Johnson will continue to lead the team in receptions. Pickens will get more targets than he did last year, but those targets will still come at a lower percentage of success because a lot of them are going to be down the field.
The biggest issue Johnson had last year was getting on the same page with his quarterbacks, particularly Kenny Pickett, but they seem to have gotten that all together this offseason. I expect him to be primed for a very successful season, relative to a relatively modest Steelers passing game.
Since open training camp practices are beginning to wind down, it will be interesting to see how much playing time Johnson gets in the three preseason games. Of all the skill position players on the roster, nobody has less to prove. Nobody has been here longer (Zach Gentry came in with the same class). He did have one drop that Kozora charted, but so does almost every wide receiver in the league every year. Let’s not make it a problem before it is one.
