PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - Officially, the Steelers have had 14 drops the past two games as the offense has sputtered. Unofficially, it's felt like 114.
In Tuesday's press conference, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said there would be fewer opportunities given to those who are struggling to catch the football.
"Where there's a pattern, you should expect to see less opportunities. That's just fair. That's just part of what this business in our game is about."
The Fan Morning Show reacted to these comments Wednesday and wondered if Tomlin's threat here is largely an idle one.
"Who else are they going to put out there? There's an example as to this," said Colin Dunlap. "Diontae Johnson drops a couple balls in a series, Ben goes right back to him. A lot of times quarterbacks will say, 'I want to go right back to that guy to get confidence.' They go down the field, Johnson ends up scoring a touchdown.
I don't know if the Steelers have enough top end talent at the receiver position to really go away from somebody. Isn't their power in being able to spread it out? Can they really put somebody down or ignore them?"
Chris Mack said they can re-shuffle the deck.
"If Mike Tomlin's really going to enact some level of change if Diontae Johnson doesn't want to hold onto the ball when it's thrown in his direction, then you think about how you enact change. Change is snap count.
Maybe Diontae Johnson isn't on the field as much. He has been the top or number two receiver, just by snap count, every single week this year (when healthy). I look back at early in the year when this offense was really clicking, the second half against Houston, the Philly game, the Cleveland game, the first half of the Tennessee game, Diontae Johnson wasn't a part of those games.
I'm not saying you sit him down. But if you dial back the Johnson and dial up the Chase Claypool, who according to snap count was the fourth wide receiver on Monday…if you dial up the James Washington, they're 4-1 when he's on the field at least half the time…I've got no problem with that."
Colin goes back to that Johnson touchdown as why it might not be a wise move to make changes.
"I wonder if there's anybody else on this football team that with that route can create that space and get open like that. That's why I wonder if it becomes a hollow threat.
You've got to be careful because you don't want to throw the whole thing out just to, I don't want to say prove a point because you're trying to win a football game, but there's that special ability that he can give you that nobody else really can."
The guys agree the 11 targets for Eric Ebron against Washington were probably too much and the Steelers can scale that back just a little bit.
Does there need to be a change in targets or snap count with these receiving options?
