The Pittsburgh Steelers offense scored 24 points this past Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. If you know your recent team history, you know that’s a big deal. Or at least it’s rare. Whether it’s a big deal or not depends on what they do as a follow up.
Their next challenge is the Jacksonville Jaguars, a bend-but-don’t-break that ranks 26th in yards, 16th in points, and first in takeaways. The Steelers will have to emphasize protecting the football in this one, which they’ve done in their four wins, or at least did a better job protecting the football than their opponents.
But perhaps they have a bit more margin for error now with WR Diontae Johnson, who contributed positively to the team’s efforts in his first full game back from injury. Though far from new to the scene, he has Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell’s attention after seeing Pittsburgh’s offense play at another level with him in the mix.
“Really, they look different when 18 came back”, he told Jacksonville reporters on Thursday, via the team’s website. “He was injured, now he’s back, him and 14 [Steelers WR George Pickens] out there together along with two backs and a quarterback, they’re an offense that presents a bunch of problems”.
“They’re big outside and they have quickness outside with speed so they’re an offense that we have to account for a bunch of guys”, he added, “and like every week in the NFL, it’s going to be a tough task. We have to go out there and play our game and do our best to stop them”.
Johnson and Pickens combined for 186 receiving yards last Sunday against the Rams, the most in a single game any pair of Steelers had had with QB Kenny Pickett under center. Which is slightly interesting given that he has thrown for more yardage seven times. Their totals accounted for more than 80 percent of his 230 passing yards.
And there wasn’t much left over. TE Connor Heyward had two catches for 23 yards. RB Najee Harris had three catches for 15 yards. WR Allen Robinson II had one catch for seven yards. And RB Jaylen Warren lost a yard on his one reception. WR Calvin Austin III and TE Darnell Washington weren’t even targeted.
Of course, it was the Steelers’ plan going into this game to lean on their outside receivers, especially with Johnson being back. There is no surprise in the fact that the offense looked different after getting one of their top weapons back on the field.
And he delivered not only with what he did before and after the catch but also in how his presence influenced the defense. His return allowed the Steelers to set up more opportune one-on-one situations for Pickens, for example, and they exploited that throughout the game.
The offense going into this season was designed around the pairing of Johnson with Pickens, the two complementing each other. Prior to this past game, we had only gotten to see that for roughly a half. We should now start to get a better sense of what this could look like moving forward.
