If you’re a young wide receiver and somebody like Steve Smith Sr. offers you some advice, you’d better have your ears open. The smart ones, at least, will listen. The five-time Pro Bowler was in Pittsburgh Steelers training camp one day this year on assignment for some program or another, and he had time to share his thoughts with some of the team’s wideouts.
Fifth-year veteran Diontae Johnson, who already has a Pro Bowl under his belt, went up to Smith to try to pick his brain. Calvin Austin III didn’t even have to do that. In fact, Smith freely dispensed with his advice, which he shared on his Cut To It podcast, saying that he really likes what the second-year player can do but for one thing.
“My only negative with him, and I told him. He just gets too saucy with his routes all the time”, he said. Following an extended metaphor comparing routes to pastries, he said that Austin “wants to put sprinkles and glaze and preserves” on his moves. “Man, stop…Sometimes, just run the route”.
A 2022 fourth-round pick out of Memphis, Austin is an undersized receiver who won on his routes in college through sheer speed and quickness combined with shiftiness at the line of scrimmage. After missing his rookie season due to injury, Smith understands his sense of urgency to prove that he belongs—to his own detriment.
He described one route in which he beat the defender so bad that it backfired. “He gave the DB a one-two-step rocker step”, he said. “He shook him and then he ran his route, gave him another. He put so much sauce on the route that he let the corner get juked back into good coverage”.
“He has to slow down, take a little sauce off it”, he concluded.
That doesn’t sound like bad advice. You probably don’t want to double-move your way into blanket coverage. The objective every time is to simply win the route no matter what it takes, whether it’s simple speed or a juke off the line of scrimmage. Once you’ve won, hit on your route.
Although he is not expected to be among the Steelers’ top three wide receivers behind Diontae Johnson, George Pickens, and Allen Robinson II, Austin should still see a healthy amount of playing time this year. He had a strong offseason after recovering from his foot injury, putting up numbers in training camp and then showing that his skill set can translate into stadiums in the preseason.
The obvious next step is to keep doing what he’s been doing, only in the regular season. There’s no reason to think that he can’t, especially if he is wise enough to heed the advice of those who have done what he’s trying to do at a high level in the past.
