The Pittsburgh Steelers have a quality receiver in Diontae Johnson, but is his productive 2021 season causing some recency bias?
There shouldn’t be a soul out there who is disappointed in what the Pittsburgh Steelers have gotten out of wide receiver, Diontae Johnson. Despite being a third-round draft choice in 2019, Johnson essentially stepped into the ‘X’ receiver role from the gate and has been the clear-cut favorite for Ben Roethlisberger prior to his retirement this offseason.
Early in his career, Johnson has proven to be a master when it comes to creating separation at the top of his routes, and his slipperiness at the line of scrimmage makes it nearly impossible to press him. This is a trait that brings back shades of Antonio Brown.
As good as he has been at times, somehow Diontae Johnson is still being overvalued. Recently, I posted a question on Twitter asking fans where Johnson would rank among the best Steelers receivers from the Kevin Colbert era:
Where does Diontae Johnson rank among these wide receivers? #Steelers
— Tommy Jaggi (@TommyJaggi) June 16, 2022
Antonio Brown
Hines Ward
Mike Wallace
Emmanuel Sanders
Santonio Holmes
Plaxico Burress
I expected most to liken him to Emmanuel Sanders or at least put him somewhere in the middle of this list. I wasn’t prepared for some of the responses I received.
Most responses I viewed seemed to slot him right after Antonio Brown and Hines Ward. One individual went as far as to say that Johnson is better than Ward.
Are Steelers fans overvaluing Johnson?
Folks, I would urge you to take his raw production numbers with a grain of salt, as there are many factors that go into making a great wide receiver. In 2021, Johnson earned 107 catches for 1,161 yards and 8 touchdowns, via Pro Football Reference. However, fans are using this as the say-all, end-all metric to measure his success.
This doesn’t tell the whole story. While he was peppered with targets, Johnson ranked just 76th in the NFL in yards per target (among receivers with at least 50 targets). Additionally, while fans didn’t think drops were an issue last season, Johnson did drop the ball 7 times over the past 7 games (including the playoffs). Certain websites (like PlayerProfiler.com) credited him with even more drops.
Collectively over the past two seasons, Johnson has dropped the ball a whopping 22 times. That’s a pretty alarming number.
Obviously, there are many factors that come into play when evaluating a receiver. One of the most important ones to consider is the quarterback play. The quality of targets and where they are coming on the field matters as well.
While Johnson has been very successful from a statistical standpoint if you were to chart his career in terms of efficiency, game by game, his line graph would look like a rollercoaster ride. Johnson has long stretches of good play, but his lows are pretty low and he tends to get caught in a rut.
I think Diontae Johnson is a very good NFL receiver, but don’t confuse raw production for efficiency. He has a lot of things he still needs to improve before fans start listing him in the same category as Hines Ward and Antonio Brown.