The Pittsburgh Steelers offense was missing four starters the last time they took the field on the other side of the bye week. They will be getting three of the four back, the exception being TE Pat Freiermuth, who was just placed on the Reserve/Injured List. The return of linemen Dan Moore Jr. and James Daniels has been met without much fanfare, but WR Diontae Johnson could provide a spark to a flagging passing game.
Always a high-volume target, Johnson’s skill set has been missing in the offense. They have not had anybody who can consistently get open and create separation. In his absence, the Steelers have been among the worst separators in the NFL. But he’s no cure-all for all that ails them.
“You sit here and you talk about Diontae Johnson. At the end of the day, the scheme is the scheme.”, NFL reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala said last week on 93.7 The Fan with Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller, referring to the game plan put together by offensive coordinator Matt Canada.
“How is Diontae going to completely break open the way the Steelers run the ball?”, he added, asking rhetorically for effect. “How is Diontae going to completely change what the Steelers do when they’re in the shotgun or under center?”.
The answers to these questions are, of course, that he’s not. And the Steelers won’t suddenly transform into a 30-points-per-game juggernaut overnight, either. The reality is that they remain quite far from where they could be.
And the other variables aren’t due to change. Canada isn’t going anywhere—if he were, he would have been gone by now. He is going to finish out this season and will continue to call the plays that are run, which Kinkhabwala also criticized. She noted that unlike with other teams, you never watch the Steelers offense and think to yourself, that’s a good play design.
No, more often than not, any success the Steelers have on offense feels as though it comes in spite of the scheme rather than as a direct result of it. and Johnson isn’t going to fix that. Indeed, he is a part of that, because his ability to get open helps to make that scheme function better than it would otherwise.
But the simple reality of the situation is this: they are not one piece away from turning that unit around, no matter what that piece is—short of say Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. It’s great to have Johnson back, make no mistake about that, and he should help make things better. But it’s not going to do anything about the more fundamental problems beneath the surface.
