Steelers: 5 players who must improve

James Washington

Washington is in his second year after a very disappointing 2018 full of rookie growing pains. He started the year with a lot of hype after a great preseason but the year was awful.

His 2018 saw him play in 14 games and start six but, his playtime was scarce until the last few weeks. He saw himself called out by his quarterback for diving for a ball unnecessarily resulting in an incomplete pass on a catch-able ball.

Ben took him aside afterward and told him he still believed in him, and that seemed to jolt his confidence down the stretch. He finished the season with 16 catches for 217 yards and a touchdown in 2018.

Now, in 2019, he has had yet another stellar preseason and came into camp leaner and quicker. This had fans buzzing that he was ready to step into the number two spot opposite JuJu Smith-Schuster.

So far Washington, as well as none of the other receivers, have stepped into that role. Washington has made a few plays in the regular season but nothing close to the expectations.

Now, with Ben Roethlisberger down for the season, he has his college quarterback throwing to him, and he needs to use that to his advantage. The two performed well as a duo at Oklahoma State, and they now have an opportunity to make the connection at the pro level.

The entire team needs to improve drastically over the first three games if they want the rest of 2019 to mean anything. However, the players listed above stand out as key guys that need to step their games up.

The Steelers are 0-3 and host Cincinnati on Monday night. In a divisional match-up, there is no better time than now for these players, and the rest of the team, to step up and show this team still has some fight left in them over the next 13 games.