Kaleb Johnson was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ third-round pick this year, and there was hope that he would quickly take a lead role in their backfield. Unfortunately, he’s had a rough start to his NFL career. He hasn’t had much of a presence on offense, getting most of his work as the Steelers’ primary kick returner. And he had a massive blunder in Week 2, gifting the Seattle Seahawks a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
“This is a draft pick, so you’re not gonna cut him,” former NFL GM Ran Carthon said recently on CBS Sports HQ. “But for me personally, knowing that he’s not playing that big of a piece on offense, he would sit next week. He would be inactive, and we’ll get guys back there that know the rules, that understand how to play this game because this is a game of inches. Everything matters…
“We’re talking about a three-point lead that then turned into a 10-point lead just off of a poor judgment call from a young player, which shows me that we can’t trust you at this point. Not to say you can’t earn it back, but in this short time, and especially losing a game the way they did that they should have won, we’ve gotta sit you and we gotta put some guys back there that we can trust.”
Carthon is right that the Steelers aren’t going to cut Johnson. While the rookie made a huge mistake, the team invested too much in the Iowa product to give up on him already.
However, it’s hard to argue that the Steelers should trot him out as their kick returner in Week 3. After that gaffe, Jaylen Warren replaced Johnson on kick returns. That will likely continue next week against the New England Patriots.
At this point, it’s not like the Steelers would be missing anything if Johnson is inactive. Through two games, he only has two carries for negative-one yards with Warren and Kenneth Gainwell basically seeing all of the work in the Steelers’ backfield.
Johnson has owned his mistake, but it wasn’t his first issue returning kicks. In Week 1, he had a fumble on a kickoff return. Luckily, the Steelers recovered that ball, but it’s hard for rookies to get opportunities when they make errors like that.
Teammates have had Johnson’s back, defending him amid criticism. While the team isn’t going to point fingers, there’s no denying that play caused a huge momentum swing.
We’ll see what the Steelers do with Johnson. He’s under a lot of fire, but he could bounce back from this. Even if he is inactive in Week 3, that doesn’t mean his NFL career is over. He just has to make sure he minimizes his mistakes going forward. No player is perfect, but Johnson has more negatives than positives on film. Hopefully, he can eventually change that.
