Pittsburgh Steelers: 3 players who stood out in win over Buccaneers

James Washington

The number two wide receiver spot is one of the most looked-at position battles of this preseason. James Washington made a really solid bid for it Friday night.

Washington hauled in 4 catches for 84 yards and a touchdown and looked really polished all around. His very first target was a slightly under thrown deep ball by Josh Hobbs that Washington went up after in the air and made a fantastic catch.

His second catch was very good in traffic on a 3rd-and-21 deep in their own territory. Washington’s third catch was a nice catch-and-run on a shallow crossing route for 11 yards. His final catch was on a nice back shoulder throw by Mason Rudolph on this play here.

Washington almost had a touchdown grab earlier in the game where he was inches away from tapping both feet in bounds in the end zone.

As mentioned before, Washington looked very polished out there. He looked like he had much more confidence than he did in his rookie year. Now, he has yet to be out there with the big boys (both the Steelers starters and all the opposing team’s primary defenses), but he displayed good hands, good route-running, and dynamic abilities in different scenarios.

Washington still has more preseason games to go, along with more time with Big Ben in training camp. But with Antonio Brown gone there are more passes to go around and Washington showed tonight that he is hungry to get some of them.