Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: RB Anthony McFarland Jr.
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: The Steelers finally updated their weekly depth chart to reflect what has been obvious for weeks: RB Anthony McFarland Jr. has been benched. Now a weekly healthy scratch, he lost his kick return job to fellow RB Godwin Igwebuike, who was signed after McFarland’s injury in the season opener.
I’m not sure how this doesn’t feel like the end of the road for Anthony McFarland Jr., the Steelers’ 2020 fourth-round draft pick. The only reason that he made the 53-man roster this year, ostensibly, was because he was given the starting kick return job. Even though he had made improvement offensively, he simply was not going to play while sitting behind Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren.
And the thing he, he did his job pretty well in the season opener. It looked as though perhaps he’d finally found his niche in the National Football League that would give him a path toward regular contributor status.
But landing on the Reserve/Injured List right after that didn’t help him at all. The Steelers waited weeks to even get him practicing again while cycling through other return options, including Gunner Olszewski and Desmond King II, both of whom had been released by the time McFarland was back.
Then the job was given to Godwin Igwebuike, the veteran running back who was originally signed after McFarland was injured. He has been inactive, a healthy scratch, for the past three games while Igwebuike has been handling kick returns, yet he had still been listed as the first-team kick returner on the depth chart.
This week’s game release for Saturday’s contest against the Indianapolis Colts was finally amended to reflect the reality of the situation: it is now Igwebuike who is the starting kick returner, and McFarland, now effectively the fourth running back, his backup.
This greatly exposes him to release, which would not be surprising. The Steelers still have to add back S Keanu Neal from the Reserve/Injured List at some point this season, assuming his is ever healthy to do so, which is unknown. But he is eligible to return to practice and be elevated at any point, and McFarland’s roster spot is just as likely as any to be the target.
