Steelers finally add their wide receiver (and another surprising depth player)
It took longer than expected, but the Pittsburgh Steelers finally added a wide receiver just before the NFL trade deadline this week.
After an offseason’s worth of rumors and weeks of in-season speculation, the Pittsburgh Steelers finally made the one move they really needed to make for their offense — they added a wide receiver.
While Mike Williams may not have the long-term star power of a Brandon Aiyuk, or the short-term high upside of a Davante Adams, he is an intriguing fight in their offense. Injuries have been a constant problem for him throughout his career, and he never really fit into the New York Jets offense, but he can still do one thing very well. He can do downfield and catch the deep ball. That is probably music to quarterback Russell Wilson’s ears as he now has two guys on the outside (George Pickens and Williams) that can do that.
Overall I have been relatively pleased with the job Omar Khan and Andy Weidl have done over the past two years piecing this team together. They have been aggressive, they have made some strong moves (with some whiffs), and the overall depth of the roster is pretty good. But the lack of meaningful attention to the wide receiver position was looking like a pretty big miss. The 49ers not trading Aiyuk and him decided to re-sign with them is not their fault. But seemingly putting all of their eggs into that basket and not really having an immediate Plan B when that did not work out does have to fall on them. And I am not sure that they did have an immediate Plan B waiting in the wings.
That meant they were stuck piecing together a wide receiver room that has an incredibly talented, but consistently frustrating No. 1 in Pickens, a wild card in Calvin Austin, an unproven mid-round pick rookie in Roman Wilson (who looks like he is going to be redshirting this season) and a bunch of replacement level veterans filling out the rest of the depth chart.
That was never going to be enough.
Pickens seems to have found new life with Wilson taking over at quarterback, while Austin has flashed some big-play potential at times throughout the first half of the season. Adding another potential big-play receiver in there could go a long way to taking the top off opposing defenses and doing even more to open up the running game and short-passing game.
Even with the offensive line injuries, the lack of depth at wide receiver, and two new quarterbacks the Steelers offense has still shown a pretty strong improvement from what we have seen the past two years. Coming out of the bye week they are, statistically speaking, an average to maybe slightly above average offense and have been even better the past two weeks against two pretty decent defenses. They have also already played most of the best defenses they are going to play this season. They are moving the ball better than they did the past couple of years, sustaining more drives, flipping field position more consistently, eating more time off the clock, turning more possessions into scoring drives, and (most importantly) scoring more points.
Having two competent quarterbacks and a competent offensive coordinator has made quite the difference. Now they have another capable wide receiver that should be able to help them even more.
That was also not the only move they made on Tuesday.
They also raised some eyebrows and added Preston Smith, an edge rusher, from the Green Bay Packers.
While it does raise some concerns about the health of Nick Herbig (he apparently had a setback in practice this week and will not play on Sunday against the Washington Commanders) you can never have enough people that can get after the quarterback. Especially given the way the Steelers like to rotate T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith off the field to keep them fresh. If you can get Herbig back you all of a sudden have four people coming off the edge that can cause some havoc for opposing quarterbacks. As good as the Steelers defense has been this season (and it has been good, allowing the second-fewest points per game in the NFL this season) they have not really gotten to opposing quarterbacks all that frequently. At least not compared to recent seasons. Part of that is teams getting the ball out quicker against them and not giving them a chance to actually rush the quarterback. But they could also still do a better job getting there.
Even though the Steelers play a lot of below average defenses the rest of the way, they are about to face all of their best opposing quarterbacks. They have Jayden Daniels on Sunday, Lamar Jackson two times, Joe Burrow two times, Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes all looming in the second half. That is going to be a challenge. Adding more people that can potentially disrupt them definitely makes sense.
What really stands out to me about these moves, even more than the players and the fits themselves, is that it is another example of how aggressive the Steelers front office has become in recent years. They have changed in how they do business and how they build their team. For years, decades even, they were the most methodical, patient, slow franchise in the league. They built through the draft, did not make many big trades, certainly did not make in-season trades, went bargain hunting in free agency and only occasionally would make a decent splash and were slow to make major changes.
All of that is out the window.
The big turning point for that, I think, was in 2019 when they traded a future first-round pick for Minkah Fitzpatrick. That was way out of character for former general manager Kevin Colbert, and it has only become more extreme with Khan and Weidl running the show.
They have been more aggressive in free agency, adding players like Isaac Seumalo, James Daniels, and Patrick Queen among others over the past couple of years.
They made an in-season coaching change by replacing offensive coordinator Matt Canada in the middle of the 2023 season, something they had literally never done in the history of the franchise.
They traded up in recent drafts to get Devin Bush and Broderick Jones, and while those moves may not have worked (the Bush move definitely did not work; the jury is still out on Jones) those were still relatively uncommon moves by them.
They completely overhauled their quarterback room in one offseason and made the unheard of decision to move on from a first-round pick (Kenny Pickett) after just two years. Granted, Pickett kind of sped up that process, but the fact they brought in Wilson in free agency to take his job was bold enough.
Now they made two pretty signifiant in-season trades to get Williams and Smith.
The biggest driving force behind this new found aggressiveness? It has to be the fact they have not won a playoff game since the 2016 season and everybody is tired of it. As consistently competitive as they have been, and for as often as they still make the playoffs, the lack of playoff wins is clearly starting to bother people in charge. Head Coach Mike Tomlin certainly has his flaws, but the way he has had this team, with the recent quarterback situation, in a consistent playoff position is something that not many other head coaches in the NFL would be capable of.
Now that the quarterback situation seems to be better, now that the offense seems to be better, now that the overall talent level and depth seems to be better, just simply making the playoffs should not be the expectation. They have put themselves into a position where winning a game, maybe even more, should not only be hoped for, but expected. It is time.