Everybody in Pittsburgh got excited when the Steelers drafted TE Darnell Washington in the third round last year. He seems like the prototypical old-school Steeler: a big, hulking tight end who actually blocks. Yet he lasted until the third round. Why? He reportedly had issues with his knees, according to Combine medicals, but we tended to forget about that in the aftermath.
At least, we forgot about it until Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reminded us all. He said in a recent chat session that he believes the Steelers drafted him knowing that he likely would never see a second contract. And he presumably intended to refer to his durability due to his knees.
Well, it got back into the airwaves, so to speak, and so it came up again. This time in Gerry Dulac’s chat session. And he doubled down on what his colleague said. “They were taking a chance, no doubt, because of injury concerns”, he wrote about the Steelers’ decision to draft Washington. “They had their fingers crossed. Still do”.
For what it’s worth, Washington did show up on the injury report due to a knee issue multiple times during the 2023 season. He did not practice on Wednesday in Week Three and remained limited the following day. During the following week, he failed to practice on Thursday.
Yet he never appeared to be unusually limited by injury during the season. He played 511 total offensive snaps and another 141 on special teams. If the Steelers had such grave concerns about his knees, I’m not sure they would have played him that much on special teams.
Yet we have multiple reporters from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in recent days reiterating reports of injury concerns. These are long-term concerns, though, I remind. Perhaps we are in the “so far, so good” realm, hoping that his knees hold up.
“I feel great man, something they probably had concern with is probably the knees because I am tall and a bigger guy but, they’re talking about some knee swelling”, Washington told local reporters after he was drafted. “I had surgery on the right one, but it was just to clean some cartilage up”.
He added that he had no breaks, tears, for fractures in his knees. Speaking about the reports about his draft stock falling, he chalked it up to “just teams taking risks on us players and no other teams wanted to take a risk. For me, a great player, and that’s what Pittsburgh got”.
He did show promise during his rookie season, almost exclusively limited to a blocking role. As a receiver, he only caught seven passes all year on 10 targets, producing 61 yards. He is not the most gazelle-like tight end the world has seen.
But are the Steelers really crossing their proverbial fingers? Or perhaps, were they? We are talking about nine months ago during the draft. They have nine months of medical information on him now. Do they feel better or worse about his long-term prognosis moving forward? It’s fair to ask. The subject only resurfaced because of questions being asked. No new developments have arisen.
