With the exception of a couple of seasons following his playing career, Ike Hilliard has been around the NFL for nearly 25 years.
Along the way, he’s played just about every role imaginable for a wide receiver, but is now facing one of his toughest assignments.
Hilliard is the wide receivers coach for the Steelers, leading a young, fairly inexperienced group that has now lost on of it’s biggest threats in JuJu Smith-Schuster.
But Hilliard’s experience, he seems to think, is a guiding influence for his receivers room.
“I think I’ve been through just about everything there is to go through,” he said Wednesday as the Steelers begin to rest up during the by week. “I’ve been fortunate enough to play 12 years, having eight surgeries, being a starter, being a backup.
“I was fortunate enough to be a starter for eight years. I became the (third wide receiver) when I got down to Tampa, so taking the cape off on third downs was a little bit different for me. But I understood and knew my role.”
And that’s what he’s had to balance since joining the Steelers before last season. Injures are a reality in the game, but Pittsburgh has been stricken by them in the receiver ranks.
The top four receivers — Diontae Johnson, Smith-Schuster, Chase Claypool and James Washington — have all missed at least one game due to injuries. And the season is only six weeks old.
And the production, as has been the case with the entire Pittsburgh offense, has lacked. Johnson is the team’s leader in receiving yards with 376. That places him 27th in the NFL.
“It’s never going to be good enough," Hilliard said. "We’re always gong to expect better. We’re playing hard, we’re playing well enough. We need more splash plays. We’re going to continue to work on that as we go forward.”
Part of the void in receiver yardage production has been due to those injures. So getting his players familiar with new, and ever-changing roles has been arguably Hilliard’s biggest task in 2021.
“We talk a lot about situational football,” he said. “And (I) kind of give them a resource, a personal resource. Every situation has just about been covered. They’re well educated, well prepared. Mentally, it’s always a process because every guy thinks they’re ‘the guy,’ and they want to be ‘the guy.’
“Having to work through certain situations is always going to be something that happens in everyday life, whether it’s football or anything else. They have a clean understanding of what the task is and they should be prepared enough to handle any situation I give them.”
With a 3-3 record and still eleven weeks of football remaining, Hilliard will continue to reference his playing career as a tool for instruction.
“The beauty of this opportunity for me was that I’m blessed enough to have this job and be in the game as long as I have,” he said. “So for my ‘little brothers’ — as I call them — in the room, I can easily lean on experience there.”