3 reasons why Steelers should finally favor Washington over Johnson

Diontae Johnson has not made the most of his opportunities, yet James Washington has and then some.

While Diontae Johnson hasn’t done as much with his chances, the Steelers have seen Washinton shine with a very limited amount of chances. James Washington has made multiple big plays this season. He doesn’t get as much opportunity until the Steelers go to their empty sets, and then when he is on the field, Ben goes to him when others aren’t getting it done.

At some point, Washington needs to stop being the 4th or 5th option. JuJu rightfully gets more targets than him, and when Claypool is in a rhythm no one else should be getting the ball. Yet, more often than not, Claypool offers one or two big plays a game, Johnson never makes a crucial play, and Ebron doesn’t get much more opportunity than quick curls, outs, and crosses. Washington has shown that he can do it all and has done everything the Steelers have asked. He has caught it deep on a double move in a touchdown against Cleveland. He caught it short and powered through 2 Giants defenders to finally give the Steelers a touchdown from someone other than JuJu Smith-Schuster.

He makes crucial 1st down conversions on 3rd and medium with intermediate routes. He doesn’t excel in every area of the game, but there isn’t a wide receiver on the roster who is as versatile as him, aside from maybe JuJu Smith-Schuster. In 2020, on just 38 targets he has amassed 243 yards. He averages 20.25 yards a game on just about 3 targets a game. While they both average less than 10 yards on a target, the fact that James Washington’s completion percentage has been under 62% in less than half of the games he has played this season tells me how much more reliable his hands are. What is worse is that in 2 of the 5 games he had less than a 62% catch percentage this season, he had received only 1 target in each, and without catching them his catch percentage for those games was 0.