In 2024, Pittsburgh Steelers TE Pat Freiermuth tied his career high in touchdowns with seven. He finished the season with 65 catches (a new career high) for 653 yards, and 10 yards per catch. The yardage and yards per reception marks were both the second-best totals of his career.
Overall, you can make the argument that 2024 was Freiermuth’s best season yet. Yet he still knows that he can improve. One area he is focusing is on route running, but not necessarily in the way you think.
“In the past, when I’m running routes, it was more focused on the routes, catching the ball and just kind of finishing off,” Freiermuth said Thursday on the Christian Kuntz Podcast. “But I’ve taken a lot of more so like cutting, like changing where I’m focusing, where I’m getting better. I’ve cut down like the top, I’ve just done the top of the route, catching the ball, and my trainer will have a bag. I’ll make him miss, make a move. So, it’s more so focused on the end part of it than the beginning part of the route. Obviously, I still do my releases and run routes and stuff like that. It’s just more so top of the route, catch the ball, get north and south, make a move.”
Freiermuth certainly has an opportunity to improve his game after he gets the ball in his hands. In 2024, he averaged 4.3 yards after the catch. That was his second-lowest mark, only ahead of his rookie season when he averaged 4.1 yards after the catch. For comparison, he averaged 8.3 yards after the catch in 2022.
The reason Freiermuth averaged 10 yards per catch was his yards before catch per reception was 5.8. That’s the second-highest mark of his career, behind his 2022 mark of 7.0. Somehow, despite averaging 11.6 yards per catch and accumulating 732 yards, Freiermuth only caught two touchdowns passes in 2022. Otherwise, we’d say that was his best season as a pro by far.
But back to 2024 (and beyond). Finding a way to generate more yards after the catch makes a lot of sense. Especially since in 2024, Freiermuth was targeted an average of only 6.1 yards past the line of scrimmage. If Freiermuth wants to help generate more explosive plays, getting better with the ball in his hands is certainly one way to do it.
Perhaps Pat Freiermuth focusing on the end part of route running will help him reach the heights that ESPN’s Brooke Pryor believes he can. He should have plenty of opportunity now that offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is in his second season with the Steelers. The biggest question is who will be throwing Freiermuth and the rest of the offensive weapons the ball.
