Diontae Johnson had another big game for fantasy purposes Monday night, netting eight grabs for 71 yards and a touchdown (he had a second touchdown negated by a penalty on the Steelers’ offensive line) in a loss to Washington, marking Pittsburgh’s first defeat of 2020. But stats can often be deceiving as anyone who has watched Johnson of late knows the former third-round pick is leaving plenty of points on the table.
Johnson has clearly earned the trust of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who has targeted him a whopping 106 times this season, good for 10th-most in the NFL. And while Johnson’s talent is without question—he’s already among the sport’s better route-runners—the mistakes are piling up. The former Toledo Rocket (where he was a teammate of Browns Pro Bowler Kareem Hunt) committed three drops in Monday night’s defeat (an occasion Larry Csonka of the ’72 Dolphins celebrated with an obligatory victory cigar), bringing his season tally to nine miscues. That figure easily leads the league. And while Diontae stans will cling to his impressive volume, dismissing Johnson’s high drop total as a product of his immense workload, many would argue that’s painting with too broad a brush.
ESPN scribe Mike Clay cites Johnson’s 8.4-percent drop rate (fourth-worst) as a red flag. His meager 61-percent catch rate, a figure that puts him in the 25th percentile of NFL pass-catchers, is equally disconcerting. Johnson isn’t getting much bang for his buck either, ranking near the bottom of the league in both aDOT (average depth of target) and yards per catch.
The Steelers are flooding Johnson with underneath targets—typically thought of as higher-percentage throws than the downfield shots Big Ben usually reserves for deep threats Chase Claypool and James Washington—yet the sophomore receiver continues to offset his successes with unconscionable gaffes. While a segment of the fan base is still very much aboard the Diontae bandwagon, others (many of them still recovering from the heart attack he gave them with his fumble against the Ravens in Week 12) are growing concerned, tiring of the 24-year-old’s mistake-addled brand of football.
Is Johnson’s maddening inconsistency the result of overthinking, a chronic pitfall of talented but raw players early in their NFL development? Or is Johnson’s worsening drop habit a fundamental flaw in his skill set? Don’t think Johnson is alone in the Steelers’ doghouse, either. The drop-prone trio of Johnson, Claypool and tight end Eric Ebron has done Pittsburgh no favors lately, continuing to short circuit on national television, where the Steelers are headed once again in Week 14 (they’ve been summoned to Western New York to face Buffalo on Sunday Night Football).
A return to normalcy would be nice—the Ravens’ COVID outbreak has had a domino effect on the league’s schedule, resulting in last week’s bizarre Wednesday game, which the Steelers followed up with Monday’s unusual 5 PM ET kickoff. Having some semblance of a running game (workhorse James Conner has been a spectator the last two weeks while battling COVID) might also steer Pittsburgh in the right direction. But with the high-powered Chiefs, winners of seven straight, breathing down the Steelers’ neck for top status in the AFC—and the elusive first-round bye that comes with it—Pittsburgh better have its fastball down the stretch.
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM Sports
Twitter | Facebook I Instagram