Fair or not, WR Diontae Johnson has been in the firing line for most of his career as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Much of it has been earned, even if not to the extent that he usually receives it. Sometimes it’s as much about bad optics as it is anything else.
That played a role in his most recent denouncements for loafing on a play after he had a touchdown called an incompletion, seemingly ignoring but possibly simply not seeing a loose ball after RB Jaylen Warren fumbled. He apparently spoke to the team in the week following, but that hasn’t stopped people from continuing to go after him, including Ryan Clark. The former Steelers safety has been particularly on his case, using him as the poster boy for the degradation of “The Steeler Way” and calling for him to be made into an example.
“If Diontae Johnson does what he’s been doing”, he said on the Pat McAfee Show yesterday, “I’m not throwing the football to him on 4th and 2. You aren’t getting the opportunity to save my team. You aren’t getting the opportunity to be the hero because you haven’t earned it”.
With last Thursday night’s game on the line, QB Mitch Trubisky did look for Johnson down the left side on a deep shot on 4th and 2. He had actually beaten his man, but the throw wasn’t even close to hitting home, to be frank, and never should have been taken. For Clark, that’s partly because Johnson apparently doesn’t deserve the opportunity.
“I’ll be honest, I would’ve liked to see Diontae Johnson benched the week after the Cincinnati game”, he went on. “I think that would’ve been something to show this team that they will not tolerate people playing and working below the standard”.
Head coach Mike Tomlin has not been immune to disciplining players through benching, though it doesn’t really seem to have happened much lately. There is a claim that that was behind RT Chukwuma Okorafor’s demotion, but that to me has always felt like an excuse to supplant an established veteran with a rookie first-round pick rather than outright saying the new guy is better and improves the chances of winning.
Truth be told, disciplinary demotions are not incredibly common in the NFL. It seems to happen all the time that we see teams move on business as usual when a player has some big blow-up that draws attention. The simple reason is their talent is needed on the field.
Given the state of the passing game, the Steelers can ill afford to sit one of their better players. Johnson also has two touchdown receptions in the two games that have following the Bengals game in which it looked as though he had scored. Given that he had just one touchdown in four years prior to that, it would be an inopportune time to sit him now. But considering they got blown out by the Arizona Cardinals anyway, I suppose it wouldn’t have made a difference if he had been benched.
