Did Steelers locker room drama really lead to Trubisky’s benching?

A recent report suggests that Mitch Trubisky and Diontae Johnson had a heated exchange a few weeks back. Is this Steelers locker room drama real?

The NFL can be a wild place sometimes. Recently, there have been multiple reports about a big Steelers locker room altercation that happened weeks ago against the New York Jets. Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette claimed that QB Mitch Trubiksy and WR Diontae Johnson got into a yelling match at halftime against the New York Jets in Week 4. His co-worker, Ron Cook, would later back Dulac up on this in an appearance on 93.7 The Fan.

At this point, it’s hard to deny that something fairly significant went down between Trubisky and Johnson in the Steelers locker room. Even head coach Mike Tomlin hinted that ‘leaks’ sometimes happen and ‘things happen among competitors from time to time,’ per ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.

It seems very likely that Trubisky and Johnson did get into some sort of yelling match, but did it really result in the Pittsburgh Steelers benching their starting quarterback?

Steelers didn’t bench Trubisky because of locker room drama

If you really sit back and think about it, the idea of a quarterback being benched because of a yelling match in the locker room seems bizarre. When is the last time you heard of an NFL quarterback being forced to hold a clipboard in the second half of a game because he stood up to a receiver complaining about not getting the ball enough?

Quite frankly, this just doesn’t add up. The evidence suggests that an altercation did ensue a few weeks back, but it’s preposterous to think that this happened as a result of the starting quarterback yelling at a teammate — something that no doubt happens routinely between guys in the locker room.

Logically, it makes significantly more sense that Mitch Trubisky was simply benched because he wasn’t getting the job done. I believe that Mitch looked better in the first half of the Jets game than his stats indicated. He did have a beautiful ball in the back of the endzone that Johnson couldn’t quite get his second foot down for a score as well as another pass that bounced off Johnson’s hands for an interception. (These plays could have potentially led to this confrontation).

However, it just makes way more sense that Tomlin chose to go with Kenny Pickett after entering the locker room with just 6 points on the board and only 84 first-half passing yards, via Pro Football Reference. After all, he did spend the 20th overall pick on a quarterback who we knew was going to see the field sooner rather than later.

I do believe that the media is making far too big of a deal out of this reported locker room drama that happened weeks ago. But I’m not about to believe that Mitch Trubisky lost his job because he used an aggressive tone with his wide receiver in the locker room. He lost it because he just wasn’t performing well enough.