The Pittsburgh Steelers are in the middle of organized team activities, and here are three sneaky important storylines to keep an eye on.
There isn’t a lot to get excited about when it comes to organized team activities (OTAs), but at least it’s football. During OTAs, players run through very basic positional drills, and no contact is allowed.
Regardless, there are still some things we can take away from the Pittsburgh Steelers first full team gathering in shorts. Here are three sneaky important OTA storylines to watch:
Is Diontae not showing up for contractual reasons?
Nearly everyone worth noting showed up to Steelers OTAs, but Diontae Johnson was not one of them. His absence comes just days after he missed his own youth football camp because his flight was delayed.
While I think his absence from OTAs is completely separate from his reasoning for missing his football camp, I do believe that his contract situation comes into play here. As you are probably aware, OTAs are not mandatory, so we aren’t going to go sounding the alarm. However, this situation is worth monitoring.
After topping 100 catches and 1,000 yards with the Steelers last season, Johnson is entering the final year of his rookie contract and he’s set to earn just $2.8 million in base salary this year, via Over the Cap. His agent is well aware of the going rate of good receivers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes an issue the Steelers need to deal with before the season. If Johnson is still absent for mandatory minicamp, then we should be worried.
If and when Stephon Tuitt will rejoin the Steelers?
After dealing with the tragic loss of his brother last summer, Stephon Tuitt sat out the entire 2021 season and his absence proved to be detrimental to Pittsburgh’s defense. After boasting a top-6 defensive unit every year from 2017 to 2020, the Steelers fell flat last year.
Through their seventeen-game schedule that never included Tuitt once, the Steelers ranked 27th in total yards allowed and were dead last in rushing defense — both in terms of yards allowed and rushing yards per attempt surrendered, according to Team Rankings.
Tuitt was playing like a top-five player on the team before his extended absence, and fans were discouraged to see that he was a no-show for Steelers OTAs. There is some reason for optimism as two of his closest friends on the team, Cameron Heyward and Tyson Alualu, seemed to be very confident that he would return.
Sadly, we don’t know for sure that this will be the case. After missing a full year of football and not suiting up for a game since the end of the 2020 season, I was really hoping Tuitt would be in a state in which he was ready to rejoin his team. If he doesn’t show up to mandatory minicamp in June, I really don’t like his chances of staying with the team.
How long before the QB pecking order changes?
I was not surprised by the quarterback pecking order in which Mike Tomlin elected to begin organized team activities. During drills, Mitch Trubisky was the QB1, followed by Mason Rudolph, Kenny Pickett, then Chris Oladokun.
Many were surprised to see that Rudolph was penciled in ahead of Pickett, but this is pretty standard. Tomlin is going to favor the veterans until the rookies prove otherwise. At some point, this is going to change; it’s just a matter of when.
We have seen impressive Steelers rookies quickly climb the depth chart in the past, but this typically doesn’t occur until the coaches get a better look at everyone early in training camp. Over the years, we have seen several rookies start from the gate (like Ryan Shazier and Najee Harris), but the QB race seems pretty tight.
Tomlin was adamant about leaving it as an open competition. This is going to work itself out and I would expect a shift in this order in the coming months — potentially one that includes Pickett as the QB1. For now, however, this is probably how the QB order will remain until at least minicamp.
There aren’t going to be a lot of takeaways from Pittsburgh Steelers OTAs when it’s all said and done, but these are three major storylines we will continue to follow as they could each have major implications on the team this season.