The Steelers find themselves undefeated through three weeks of football, and while the team is far from perfect, they are gelling. The defense has been elite, limiting offenses and keeping scores low. The offense has been grinding out drives, chewing clock, and doing enough to score and keep the lead in games.
The receiver room still hasn’t come into its own quite yet. George Pickens has been his usual self, although he has seen some of his receptions get thrown away by penalties. He is also getting heavily shadowed by opposing defenses for obvious reasons. The rest of the receiver room has been pretty poor.
Van Jefferson hasn’t captured the hype that he had in camp. Calvin Austin is coming off a career game, but he has yet to prove that he can stack good games. And Scotty Miller… well he is still just Scotty Miller. There is plenty of room for improvement, but the offense is also taking steps forward which is allowing the passing game to open up.
Despite these struggles, it seems like the Steelers dodged a bullet by not acquiring Brandon Aiyuk. What felt like the storyline of the summer, the team was apparently in a “will they, won’t they” soap opera with the 49ers over their disgruntled receiver. In the end, he stayed in San Francisco and inked a new contract with them.
Steelers should be happy where they are at WR
I was against the idea of trading for Aiyuk for most of the offseason. The 49ers wanted a healthy amount of compensation for him in return, and I never saw the innate value. Giving up a second and third-round pick, the reported compensation although that has not been confirmed, was a stiff price. Add in the mega contract he would have needed and you would have dedicated a lot of resources to a player that, seemingly, wouldn’t have been worth it.
This isn’t to say Aiyuk is bad, he isn’t, but I don’t think he belongs in the conversation of top receivers as his contract now mandates. He is a great vertical weapon but also thrived in a 49ers offense that featured a potent run game and numerous short and intermediate receiver threats. It allowed him to see a lot of single coverage and thrive on winning man-against-man.
That isn’t the current state of the 49ers, and his production has dipped because of it. Christian McCaffery hasn’t played yet, and while Jordan Mason has been productive he isn’t the threat on the ground that you have to gameplan around. Deebo Samuel is also hurt, further taking away Aiyuk’s advantages. As a result, the start of his season has been muted.
Elite receivers don’t have this issue. Just look at Justin Jefferson, who lost his starting quarterback and has only had running mate Jordan Addison for one game. He has still managed to play at an elite level.
There is a valid complaint that Aiyuk is still getting up to speed after sitting out most of the offseason. There is validity to that, but we have also seen Ja’Marr Chase perform despite missing most of the offseason. Even if he is just shacking off rust, the Steelers would have been paying for that.
Would Aiyuk have been an upgrade for this offense? Absolutely, but I don’t think he would have been worth the cost of the draft picks and the new deal. I fully expect his play to get better, and once the 49ers get healthy he should be back to his usual ways. That said, the Steelers have shown that their cast of misfits is fine enough in the receiver room, and it looks like they won by not trading for Aiyuk this year.