Entering the third season of his rookie contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers, the time is now for WR Calvin Austin III to state his case for additional playing time in hopes of earning a second contract with the team. His rookie season was robbed from him by a foot injury. He started off his second season strong, but his usage trailed off to almost nothing by the end of the season. You can blame it on the inept offensive scheme of Matt Canada or the poor quarterback play, but either way it was not the start to his career that many envisioned when the Steelers made him their fourth-round pick in 2022.
Austin is hoping to turn that around this season, and with a new offensive scheme and different quarterbacks, that just might happen. If his work ethic is any indication, he is on the right track.
“Calvin’s looked great,” said WR coach Zach Azzanni after practice on Wednesday in a video posted by Post-Gazette Sports on YouTube. “Did a really nice job being a leader. Extremely coachable, tough kid. As we get into start game planning, now you start moving guys around, see what he’s got. But man, just really fun to coach. That kid goes hard…I gotta pull him outta practice every day ’cause he goes so hard.”
Azzanni is known for his tough love and “butt-kicker” coaching style. He isn’t the kind to throw around this sort of praise without good reason. He praised Austin throughout spring practices, and doubled down here with more.
Austin has been getting extra work in after training camp practices with Russell Wilson. Even in the brutal stretch of six-straight practices — including Friday Night Lights — Austin was looking for extra work wherever he could get it.
Rookie WR Roman Wilson called Austin the leader of the room during OTAs in the spring, so his hard work is being noticed by both his coaches and peers.
From Alex Kozora’s training camp stats through the first 10 days of practice, Austin has been pretty quiet overall. He caught 6 of his 10 targets for 52 yards and 2 touchdowns. Though just today he caught a touchdown pass during seven shots working as the first-team slot receiver.
As Azzanni noted, it will be interesting to see Austin’s role now that they are starting to formulate an offensive game plan to take into the first preseason game. I would imagine Austin gets a fair amount of work in the preseason, so he should get some opportunities to work on multiple areas of the field.
The hope is that Calvin Austin’s 4.32-second 40-yard dash time can finally be put to use with an increase in play-action passing and two quarterbacks who are more than capable of pushing the ball down the field.
