Pittsburgh Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth has now missed three games due to a hamstring injury, and he will miss at least three more while on the Reserve/Injured List. One could be forgiven for believing that the tight end position has disappeared from the team’s offense since then, at least in the passing game.
While Connor Heyward has gotten a few receptions in the interim, rookie TE Darnell Washington has been persona non grata except as a blocker. He has zero targets over the past three weeks since Freiermuth has been out. Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, frankly, is not surprised.
“As a pass-catcher, he really doesn’t play to his Combine athleticism and as a route-runner, he’s not very polished”, he told a reader in a recent chat session. “The Steelers wanna win games even more than the fans, so if it was obvious that the rookie tight end whose knee issues make him more of a plodder than a smooth mover could help, they’d factor him into the plan more. Georgia barely threw to him, too, and I think those coaches knew what they were doing”.
Certainly, not everything he said here is wrong. Washington did reportedly slide in the draft due to teams’ concerns about his knees. I don’t believe that makes him run like a “plodder”, however; rather, any smoothness his movements in-route might lack are more due to a lack of polish, not a physical inability to be smooth.
Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t be blowing his theoretical pass-catching abilities way out of proportion. Zach Gentry looked pretty good catching the ball in training camp, too. He came out of college as a receiving tight end. Matt Spaeth was a John Mackey Award winner. But all that matters is what you can do in-game.
Not that Washington has been given a great deal of opportunities. He’s only been targeted three times so far, catching one pass for 10 yards. His other targets were not ideal, including one in tight coverage that was defended.
Fans want to see him more for multiple reasons, not the least of which being the simple basic hope for anything that could provide a spark of life to this offense. Washington does look the part at 6-8 and whatever he actually weighs, which is considerable, but the reality is fans aren’t going to want to hear why he isn’t getting the ball.
Still, I’m not prepared to go nearly as far as Batko seems to on the subject of his contributions in the passing game. I don’t read a great deal into his usage as a passing target in a Georgia offense, especially not when he spent his college career playing with what should be a first-night tight end prospect in 2024.
