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: WR Diontae Johnson
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The veteran wide receiver finished the regular season on a strong note with a critical 71-yard touchdown grab in the finale against the Baltimore Ravens. He finished the game with four catches for 89 yards, which was 59 percent of their total passing yardage on the day.
Diontae Johnson may not be anybody’s favorite Steeler. Indeed, many have wanted him gone for years, and he didn’t always help his cause this year with certain comments and occasional lapses on the field, including issues of effort.
But he’s still capable of being a dynamic producer when given the opportunity. Aside from the fact that he missed four games early in the season due to a hamstring injury, he was still limited in opportunity, averaging under seven targets per game.
He finished the season with 51 catches, a significant drop-off from the 107 he had in 2021, for 717 yards. But he found the end zone again, indeed five times, tying for the team lead in touchdown receptions with George Pickens.
And that included perhaps a playoff-clinching 71-yard touchdown pass from QB Mason Rudolph in the second half of Saturday’s win over the Baltimore Ravens. The sudden strike broke a 7-7 tie and provided the margin of victory in a game Pittsburgh ultimately needed to win.
There were a couple of games during the season in which he was unusually quiet. He had just one catch for 17 yards against the Green Bay Packers. He had two for 15 a few weeks ago when Pickens nearly went for 200 with two touchdowns.
But he caught eight passes for 165 yards over the final two games of the season, coming up with clutch plays. In the seven games after offensive coordinator Matt Canada was fired, he caught 25 passes for 382 yards and four touchdowns.
After two big weeks for Pickens, Johnson helped remind everybody that he is also capable of delivering in big ways with his 71-yard touchdown, which is by far the longest play of his career, his previous long being 50 yards.
He posted his highest success rate per catch of his career and also finished with by far his highest yards per catch at 14.1 though that is also a factor of fewer targets. Johnson is due $10 million in 2024, including a $3 million roster bonus due on March 20. Given that the Steelers are likely to release Allen Robinson II and the fact that there really aren’t any other wide receivers, it’s hard to see them parting with him at that price. They might be more likely to try to extend him to lower his cap hit.
