With the Pittsburgh Steelers on a bye during Week Six of the NFL season, it marked a good time to sit back and assess the state of the franchise while projecting forward, and not just for the rest of the 2023 season.
At least, that’s what CBS Sports did early Monday morning. In a 2024 NFL Mock Draft, CBS Sports identified one clear area of need for the Steelers to address in the first round next April.
Undoubtedly, it was on the offensive side of the football, but it came at a position where the Steelers seem strong within the top two, at least for now. That would be wide receiver.
Former NFL GM Rick Spielman paired the Steelers with Texas wide receiver Xavier Worthy in the first round of the mock draft, which has the Steelers picking at No. 25 overall, based on the records of teams entering Week Six.
“The reason I ended up going with Xavier Worthy was because [George] Pickens is the real deal. [Allen] Robinson [II] is not. He’s kind of a one-year stopgap guy. Diontae Johnson is hurt all the time. And [Calvin] Austin [III] is just a gadget guy. I think they need to get more weapons for [Kenny] Pickett, and this kid fits the bill for me,” Spielman said regarding the Steelers’ selection of Worthy at No. 25 overall.
Pickens certainly looks like the real deal, a guy who could be a legitimate No. 1 receiver for Pittsburgh moving forward, and at worst a fringe No. 1/2 guy in the right setting. He’s taken on a starring role this season and has a team-high 22 receptions for 393 yards and two touchdowns, which includes his game-winning touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens in Week Five.
Robinson does appear to be just a stopgap in the slot at this point, though he does have 17 receptions so far on the season. But Spielman’s assessment of Johnson as a guy who is “hurt all the time” just isn’t accurate — at all.
Johnson has missed just five games in his career — four of which have occurred this season after he hurt his hamstring in Week One of the 2023 season against the San Francisco 49ers on a 26-yard catch-and-run in the third quarter. In 2021 and 2022 alone, Johnson played more than 90% of the offensive snaps, meaning he was available and on the field consistently.
The 2020 and 2019 seasons saw him have just 71% and 65% of offensive snaps, though that was in part due to the Steelers working him into the fold slowly while having strong receiving rooms featuring JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chase Claypool and James Washington in 2020 and the likes of Smith-Schuster and Washington in 2019 with Ben Roethlisberger missing nearly the entire season.
Outside of the outlandish take from Spielman about Johnson, the selection of Worthy is an intriguing one, especially if the goal is to surround Pickett with as many weapons as possible. It’s also worth noting that the Steelers had a scout at the Red River Rivalry against Oklahoma two weeks ago, a game in which Worthy had eight receptions for 108 yards.
Worthy is listed at 6-foot-1, 172 pounds and has been a big-play receiver for the Longhorns the last three seasons.
As a freshman in 2021, Worthy hauled in 62 receptions for 981 yards and 12 touchdowns. He followed that with a strong 2022 season, hauling in 60 receptions for 760 yards and nine touchdowns. This season in six games Worthy has 34 receptions for 452 yards and three touchdowns. For his career, Worthy is averaging 14.1 yards per catch as that true big-play threat for Texas.
Worthy was named first-team All-Big 12 as a freshman in 2021 and then was second-team All-Big 12 in 2022. Entering the season with 21 career touchdown receptions, he was third all-time in Texas history.
A former four-star recruit, Worthy — who hails from California — is seen as a true home-run weapon at the next level. As The Athletic’s Dane Brugler points out, the concerns with Worthy are very clear, that being his size, lack of contested-catch situations and struggles with drops. But here’s what Brugler also had to say about Worthy in early September:
“When focusing primarily on the best elements of his game, like his vertical speed and lightning-quick feet, Worthy has the traits to be a weapon in the right role. With his explosive long speed, Worthy is a well-known, dangerous deep-ball threat. But his tracking skills are just as impressive as his wheels,” Brugler wrote for The Athletic.
He is certainly a home-run threat and could add an explosive element to a passing game in the NFL, but his fit in Pittsburgh isn’t as clear. Would he be a slot-only guy due to his size? His struggles with drops make that a concerning fit as well. Is he a good enough route runner to put him at the X or the Z and win vertically? A lot of questions there with Worthy, but it would make sense to add that type of weapon around Pickett in his third season.
Looking further at CBS Sports’ mock draft though, it would be better for the Steelers to address the offensive line in front of Pickett first, rather than get him another pass-catching weapon. BYU’s Kingsley Suamataia went just two picks after the Worthy pick for Pittsburgh and would be a Day One starter at right tackle, giving Pittsburgh a potential elite bookend pairing with Broderick Jones long-term. Same with Duke’s Graham Barton, who went one pick after Suamataia.
There’s also Arizona’s Jordan Morgan, who went 30th overall in the mock draft. Protection for Pickett is more important than adding pass catchers, at least at this point, for the Steelers.
