The Pittsburgh Steelers have a knack for getting rid of their skill-position players at the perfect time. While it's an imperfect system, no team in the NFL selects Day 2 and Day 3 wide receiver talent like Pittsburgh. As of late, the Steelers have used that skillset to their advantage, taking wideouts with perceived attitude problems or on-field question marks, only for those same players to thrive on their roster. Of course, as was the case with George Pickens, Martavis Bryant, Chase Claypool and Johnson – eventually personality flaws come back to bite them. Omar Khan and Mike Tomlin know when to fold their cards, getting the most they can in return for a talented weapon who is a season or two away from imploding.
Johnson is among the most extreme examples. Diontae was traded to the Carolina Panthers back in 2014 for cornerback Donte Jackson and a pick swap. The return confused Steelers fans at the time, but leaks from the media suggested the front office believed Johnson to be a bad influence on Pickens. Sure, the deal left the Steelers without a real WR2, but if it meant freeing up Pickens, perhaps it was a win-win. What happened after the fact only confirmed Pittsburgh's suspicions.
In his final season in Pittsburgh, Johnson had 717 receiving yards. In the two years since, he's just barely reached half of that mark. This includes a 2024 season in which he recorded just 18 yards. Johnson has played for Carolina, Baltimore, Houston and even Cleveland during that time period. None of his stops went smoothly, seemingly due to self-imposed struggles. In Baltimore, he was suspended. And in other stops, he was unhappy with his targets.
Diontae Johnson is one of many former Steelers to crash out
Antonio Brown
Where do we begin? The most popular and obvious target of this investigation is Antonio Brown. While AB had some success after leaving Pittsburgh — he did win a Super Bowl, after all, something the Steelers and Mike Tomlin didn't — he recorded just over 1,000 regular-season yards combined with the Buccaneers and Patriots once he left. Heck, we all remember how his trade to the Raiders went down, and the subsequent drama he created. Dealing Brown was addition by subtraction, if only because Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers were tired of his act and division in the locker room.
Martavis Bryant
Martavis Bryant is another. Bryant, who was drafted by the Steelers in 2014, showed flashes of immense potential. He was suspended the entire 2016 season, and despite a bounceback campaign just a year later, was eventually traded to the Raiders for a third-round draft pick. From there, Bryant would play one season in Oakland, recording his worst statistical campaign to date. He was suspended another year for violated the league's drug policy. He then broke the terms of that punishment, and was suspended again, this time indefinitely. Bryant would go on to play in the CFL and XFL, and briefly return to the NFL in 2023 and 2024, failing to record any official statistics.
Chase Claypool
Chase Claypool was selected in the second round by the Steelers, had a solid rookie campaign and backed it up with another, recording over 1,600 yards combined. Claypool was considered one of the best up-and-coming wide receivers in the NFL, which is why the Chicago Bears traded for him back in 2022 at the trade deadline. What Chicago didn't know is that the Steelers had questioned Claypool's work ethic for quite some time. While he thrived with capable quarterback play thanks to Roethlisberger, he could only rely on natural talent for so long. The Bears gave Pittsburgh a second-round pick for Claypool, which they promptly used on Joey Porter Jr., one of the best young cornerbacks in the NFL.
Claypool hasn't been the same since, recording just 217 receiving yards, less than he had in the first eight games of the 2022 season (when the Steelers traded him in the first place). In the content business, we call that a masterclass.
What do the Steelers know that other teams don't?
The Steelers don't have a crystal ball — or at least I would assume not — as it pertains to wide receivers with off-field or attitude problems. What they do have is Mike Tomlin. For as much flack as Tomlin receives for not winning a playoff game in nearly a decade, he is a great leader of men. As a veteran head coach, Tomlin has tremendous intuition and isn't afraid to pull the plug on a project if it isn't working. In the case of star wide receivers, Tomlin is confident in his ability to lead difficult personalities down the straight and narrow, even if he knows there's an end date in the not-so-distant future.
Tomlin's confidence in his own ability allows Khan to take more chances, especially on Day 2 or Day 3 of the NFL Draft, where players like Pickens, Bryant, Claypool, Johnson and Brown were all available. Without a strong culture in place, the Steelers wouldn't be able to afford to take such chances. Just look what happened when all the players mentioned above went elsewhere.
The next test case in this experiment will be Pickens. The main difference is that Pickens was traded to the Cowboys, an organization which thrives on drama and has a capable quarterback and leader in place. On paper, Pickens playing the WR2 role next to CeeDee Lamb is dangerous. Prescott and Lamb have lauded Pickens' mentality thus far. A change of scenery was necessary for Pickens and the Steelers to thrive, as he reached the end of his leash.
Someone has to break this trend eventually, right?