How much will Mike Williams play in his second game with the Steelers?
The Pittsburgh Steelers wouldn’t have traded a fifth-round pick for Mike Williams if they didn’t plan to use him. Now, he didn’t play much in his Steelers debut, but that’s because he hardly had time to practice. And, of course, he made the one play he had a chance to make, which was a pretty big one.
Now that he has a full week under his belt, he knows what the Steelers want him to do better. They will still emphasize the run game, but where does Mike Williams fit in more generally? They are still playing Van Jefferson and Calvin Austin III, and he is still breaking himself in.
Obviously, making a big play like his 32-yard touchdown will help Williams see the field more. Russell Wilson’s deep ball is one of the Steelers’ most potent assets, and they believed when they drafted for him that he could build that strength even further. A guy like Austin is fast, but he has a small catch radius and won’t win 50 percent of 50/50 balls.
Mike Williams has talked about WR coach Zach Azzanni a couple times already since arriving. He says the Steelers’ alignments are pretty much the same as the Jets’, since Azzanni came over from there. That helped him hit the ground running, so to speak, but they still didn’t have big plans for him.
So the question is, how much of a difference does a week make? Of course there are things a wide receiver will be able to do coming off the street, as the job at its core is mostly running and catching. But there are nuances in an NFL offense, which the Steelers finally have, that take time to learn. Mike Williams is on his third team and who knows how many offensive coordinators he’s had.
He probably knows a thing or two about adapting to different systems. But the offense was already going pretty good overall without him. Williams showed he can participate, but how big of a role will he have, and how soon? Could he play 25-30 snaps for the Steelers in their first divisional game?
The Steelers’ 2024 season is underway, following another disappointing year ending in a first-round playoff loss. They have had a long offseason since the Buffalo Bills stamped them out of their misery back in January. There are positive signs, but things could jump off the rails any moment.
The biggest question hanging over the team is the quarterback question. Is Russell Wilson earning a lucrative new deal next year, and is Justin Fields still in consideration? How will the team continue to address the depth chart, which is surprisingly still in flux?
The regular season is here, following weeks of camp and preseason games. The Steelers made numerous moves through signings and trade—and release. More than usual, they seemed comfortable creating holes, confident they can fill them. Some they managed to fill, others not so much. Now that we have so many pieces of the puzzle, however, we merely have a new set of questions to ask.
