Throughout their recent history, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been especially and specifically adept at selecting smaller receivers from smaller schools in the middle rounds, and turning them into stars. There is no better example than Antonio Brown, who the team took out of Western Michigan in the sixth round of the 2010 draft. We tend to forget this now in light of Brown’s… erratic behavior, but in his prime, he was the best route-runner in the game, and he could put just about any cornerback in a blender. There was Mike Wallace the year before, there was Emmanuel Sanders in the same draft that brought them Brown, and this year, there was Memphis’ Calvin Austin in the fourth round.
There was also Toledo’s Diontae Johnson, taken out of Toledo in the 2019 draft. At 5-foot-10 and 183 pounds, Johnson perfectly fit that prototype, and he’s coming off his first 1,000-yard receiving season, despite a passing game that was severely limited in the intermediate and deep levels.
Moving from Ben Roethlisberger to either Mason Rudolph or Kenny Pickett might not put too much of a shine on the quarterback position in the short term, but the Steelers made sure on Thursday to extend one of the better chips in their passing game.
The #Steelers and WR Diontae Johnson have agreed on a two-year, $36.71 million extension, source says. The sides worked last night and this morning to end his hold-in with a shorter deal than we’ve seen from others that allows him to be a free agent again after the 2024 season.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) August 4, 2022
It’s a relatively low-ball deal considering all the receivers who have secured the bag this offseason, but for Johnson, it may be an ideal way to go. It’s also good for the Steelers, as Johnson hasn’t quite proven to be on the same level as a Terry McLaurin or A.J. Brown or D.K. Metcalf, but you can see how the arrow is pointing up.
“Diontae is not a big talker,” Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said of Johnson in June. “He’s more of a doer, and I can appreciate that, and I’m aligned with that. Just putting his head down and working every day. He’s going to provide quality examples about how to go to work and there’s going to aid guys like [rookie receiver George] Pickens in the maturation process because he has visual examples of what he needs to do and how he needs to do it.
As far as what Johnson has done and how he needs to keep doing it, let’s go to the tape.
Winning deep in a limited offense.
How limited was the Steelers’ deep passing game in 2021? Per Pro Football Focus, Roethlisberger attempted 71 passes of 20 or more air yards in his final season, completing just 21 for 686 yards, six touchdowns, and three interceptions. 28 of Roethlisberger’s deep targets went to Johnson, which led the team, and Johnson caught eight of those deep passes for 274 yards and four touchdowns.
When Big Ben decided to throw a go ball or a fade downfield, Johnson was his guy. This 29-yard play against the Vikings in Week 14 is proof of concept. Johnson is able to trail the helium throw and bring it in despite the fact that cornerback Kris Boyd is draped all over him.
And on this 50-yard touchdown against the Broncos in Week 5, Johnson showed cornerback Kyle Fuller that any kind of bail-and-trail against him had best come with some serious speed recovery to get back on the track.
I have hypothesized that the addition of Pickett in the first round of the 2022 draft will give the Steelers a more expansive deep passing game down the road, and Johnson certainly has the tools to benefit from that.
Creating after the catch.
In 2021, 542 of Johnson’s 1,195 yards came after the catch, and he can certainly succeed underneath. This touchdown against the Chiefs shows how he can take a quick pass to the house, and cornerback Deandre Baker is left hanging.
When Johnson is willing to catch the ball as it approaches the middle of the field (more on that in a minute), he can blow things up downfield. This 32-yard catch against the Chargers in Week 11 was 28 yards after the catch, and you can see how well he works in concert with other receivers in more expansive route concepts.
And here, Johnson scalds the Browns’ defense with the same concept.
With George Pickens and Calvin Austin in the fold, it will be highly interesting to see how Johnson will be used in multiple route concepts — both deep and underneath.
Where Johnson still needs work.
Is there room for further development in Johnson’s game? Certainly. He was officially debited with five dropped passes last season, and the tape shows a few more. While some of those drops were due to the leaden nature of Big Ben’s release time, there were also instances in which catching the ball was the easier thing to do. This drop against the Browns in Week 17 may betray an aversion to impending contact in this particular case.
And there were times when he was looking to get to the ball a step more quickly than maybe he should have.
Pretty much anything in which Johnson was directed to head toward the middle of the field could be an issue at times.
Here’s Exhibit D. If you want a true contested-catch receiver? Well, that’s going to require some work. I’m not saying that Johnson lacks a certain amount of dig required for the position at the highest level, but he’ll need to clean this up if he really wants to cash in when this extension expires.
It's a fair deal for both sides.
This was the offseason of big receiver deals. Is Johnson one of Those Guys? It’s fair to say that at this point, he’s not. He’s an excellent speed receiver with a nice route palette, but the physical and anticipatory aspects of his play lag behind a bit. Those are the things, in my opinion, that take him to a “B” level, which is why he got a “B” contract.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and if Johnson manages to move into the “A” tier in the next couple of seasons, he’ll be paid accordingly. For now, he has a short-term opportunity to do just that.
Clearly, the Steelers see the value in keeping him around.
“He’s becoming a veteran guy, and so it’s reasonable to expect him to get better physically, him to get better intellectually in terms of knowing and understanding the game and utilizing that knowledge for his good,” Tomlin said of Johnson last December. “And also, just being able to withstand the ups and downs that is a game or a series or a season. We’re appreciative of his growth and development, but I don’t think anyone’s surprised by it. As a matter of fact, we expected it and we needed it.”
At the same time, the Steelers selected two receivers in the 2022 draft, which speaks to their overall mindset at the position. They seem to see Johnson as a valuable cog in the machine. Johnson needs to prove that he’s the engine if he wants one of those other deals.
