5 best Steelers players to draft in fantasy football in 2020
5. JuJu Smith-Schuster
JuJu Smith-Schuster coming in at number five on the list may or may not come as a surprise to many people. He is now looked at as the Steelers number one receiver and struggled in his first season with that role. Obviously, Ben Roethlisberger not being healthy played a big part in that as well. Even with the return of Roethlisberger, there are still some concerns pertaining to his fantasy value.
He is a tremendous young player but has struggled to find the find the end zone more than seven times in a single season. That is a huge hit to fantasy value. In his 2018 season, he finished with 111 receptions, 1,426 yards receiving, and 7 touchdowns. He finished with 296.9 fantasy points (Wide Receiver 8) due to his high volume. This dropped to a very poor 113.2 fantasy point total (Wide Receiver 65) in 2019 without Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown. He finished that season with an abysmal 42 receptions, 552 yards receiving, and only 3 touchdowns with Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges at the helm.
Regardless of who was throwing to him, Juju Smith-Schuster often showed the inability to get open in 2019. He is not the best-polished route runner and struggles with a sloppy release at times. He was not able to create very much space with what seemed like at all against single coverage, nevertheless double coverage. However, Roethlisberger could have gotten him a lot more targets and opportunities than he was awarded this year.
I have very mixed emotions about drafting the young wide receiver this year. There are just too many safer options. On one hand, Roethlisberger returning from injury does give him a lot of hope. On the other hand, it seems as if he will struggle to find the end zone again, depleting his fantasy value. With the signing of Eric Ebron and the emerging star of Diontae Johnson, Juju’s value just does not seem to be there. He is projected to be about the 14th receiver taken off the board. I would not even consider drafting him until at least the end of the third round, preferably the end of the fourth round because I do believe he will slip.