The Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense continues to struggle week after week. They are currently in the bottom five in the NFL in both rushing and passing and are the third-worst scoring group in the league. One position in particular has contributed a historically low amount to the offense overall: the tight ends.
The Steelers came into this season with TE Pat Freiermuth the veteran and leader of the group, but they also invested in the position with a third-round draft pick used on Darnell Washington out of Georgia. He is a planet theory type of player with freakish size and athletic ability for the position. They also have TE Connor Heyward, who showed some promise in his rookie season. That lineup of tight ends, on paper, should have been an improved group over last year, but that has not been the case.
| FIRST SEVEN GAMES TIGHT END PRODUCTION BY SEASON | ||||
| Season | Yards | Targets | Receptions | TDs |
| 2000 | 97 | 14 | 9 | 0 |
| 2001 | 118 | 17 | 10 | 1 |
| 2002 | 53 | 17 | 10 | 0 |
| 2003 | 143 | 24 | 12 | 1 |
| 2004 | 81 | 13 | 10 | 1 |
| 2005 | 213 | 23 | 18 | 4 |
| 2006 | 219 | 20 | 14 | 2 |
| 2007 | 328 | 34 | 27 | 8 |
| 2008 | 200 | 27 | 20 | 1 |
| 2009 | 374 | 52 | 44 | 5 |
| 2010 | 183 | 25 | 15 | 1 |
| 2011 | 290 | 36 | 27 | 3 |
| 2012 | 320 | 46 | 35 | 5 |
| 2013 | 348 | 36 | 26 | 1 |
| 2014 | 276 | 37 | 28 | 2 |
| 2015 | 168 | 25 | 17 | 1 |
| 2016 | 278 | 51 | 33 | 4 |
| 2017 | 226 | 35 | 22 | 2 |
| 2018 | 592 | 49 | 40 | 2 |
| 2019 | 163 | 24 | 18 | 2 |
| 2020 | 274 | 42 | 30 | 1 |
| 2021 | 226 | 37 | 28 | 1 |
| 2022 | 466 | 59 | 44 | 1 |
| 2023 | 152 | 37 | 21 | 2 |
The Steelers have gotten just 152 receiving yards out of their tight ends through seven games, which is their lowest total since 2004, Ben Roethlisberger’s rookie season, with Jerame Tuman, Jay Riemersma, and Matt Cushing playing tight end. This also makes the lowest tight end production pace in Mike Tomlin’s tenure as the head coach. This coming after the Steelers have spent a draft pick on the position in four out of the last five drafts.
The 152 yards are also less than a third of the 466 yards the tight end group accounted for through seven games just a season ago. The volume of targets isn’t far off from other years, but the production is down. They have scored two touchdowns, both to Freiermuth in the first three weeks of the season, which is roughly in line with their historic first-seven game pace.
Heyward leads the way with 89 receiving yards and Freiermuth is still second despite not playing since Week Four with 53 yards. Washington has recorded just one catch for 10 yards. Opposing teams barely need to game plan around the tight ends anymore, especially with Freiermuth out, because they simply aren’t used very much. This was amplified during WR Diontae Johnson’s absence. With two key players out of the lineup because of injury, it was assumed that the Steelers could get someone like Washington involved more, or even one of the receivers like Allen Robinson II or Calvin Austin III. That has not happened.
The offense is heavily focused on Johnson and WR George Pickens, which makes game planning against the Steelers a little bit easier for opposing defenses. It isn’t clear that the Steelers have any plans to get their tight ends more involved. Against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Rodney Williams actually logged more snaps than Washington with Tomlin citing game circumstance as the reason why. With Freiermuth on the reserve/injured list for at least two more games with an aggravated hamstring injury, the team will likely continue to get very little out of this group.
