The Pittsburgh Steelers’ silence at the NFL trade deadline was certainly frustrating for fans of the Black and Gold. Hours before the deadline passed, Mike Tomlin gave fans hope that they’d make a move, only to watch Jakobi Meyers head to Jacksonville, Rashid Shaheed go to Seattle, and every other avenue out wide come to a dead end.
Still, in that same press conference, Tomlin expressed confidence in the team’s ‘eligibles’, emphasizing the role of the tight ends in the passing game, but also trust in players like Calvin Austin III and Roman Wilson, who have grown more productive in recent weeks.
But since the only addition made to the wide receiver room ahead of 4 pm on November 4 was the signing of Marquez Valdez-Scantling, the message is clear to Austin and Wilson both: step up.
With no new help coming, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ young receivers are officially on the clock
Both Austin and Wilson have begun to step up in recent weeks. Since Austin returned from injury two weeks ago, he’s caught nine passes for 84 yards, and in that same span, Wilson has caught five passes for 78 yards.
Austin would likely have had the second-highest targets on the team had he not missed two games. He’s just five targets behind Jonnu Smith, who is second on the team with 34. Wilson, on the other hand, has the fewest targets of any player with at least 10 this season, with 12, and seven have come in the past three weeks.
Outside of Wilson’s “boneheaded” fumble, as Tomlin put it, both have given fans a glimpse of the potential fans have been waiting for them to unlock. Wilson caught his first touchdown in primetime against the Packers in his most productive game of his short career. Austin has begun to receive more consistent targets, six in each of the past two games, and is providing consistent production in turn.
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Steelers fans have been given reasons to dismiss both players as the two outliers in a long line of mid-round draft picks at the position who panned out. But they’ve also seen examples of why they can be just as effective as JuJu Smith-Schuster, George Pickens, Martavis Bryant, and others, even if for wildly different reasons in much smaller sample sizes. And the hope is that one or both can be more reliable than those three and others ever proved to be.
Still, Valdez-Scantling isn’t going to be the new WR2. And since the Steelers didn’t budge at the trade deadline, no one else will be either. With half a season to go, both young wideouts are being asked to take their game to another level down the stretch to prove themselves in the offense.
It’s their time to answer the call to make sure that they aren’t just catching passes from Rodgers in meaningful games and moments this season, but also for whoever takes over for him next year and beyond. It’s their time to turn those glimpses of promise they’ve given this season into something much more substantive and concrete.