Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — The first quarter of his rookie season has probably not gone the way that Pittsburgh Steelers running back Kaleb Johnson hoped it would.
The team’t third-round pick out of Iowa, Johnson was an extremely productive running back in college, tearing up the Big Ten for 1,537 yards and 21 touchdowns as a junior with the Hawkeyes in 2025. That’s an eye-popping average of 128.1 yards per game.
Through four contests with the Steelers, he has just 21 yards, and it wasn’t until the team’s Week 4 game against the Minnesota Vikings that he inched into positive territory. Through the first three games, he ran the ball twice for a total of one negative yard.
The rest of Johnson’s game has been a work in progress, as well. Iowa’s offense is notoriously run-heavy, and while those run concepts neatly align with Arthur Smith’s vision for the Pittsburgh rushing attack, the fact that he caught just 29 passes over the entirety of his college career has shown in his pro transition.
At 6-foot-1, 224 pounds, Johnson certainly has the size and strength to be an effective pass blocker, but his technique has required significant refinement. It’s an open question as to whether he’ll ever be an above-average weapon out of the backfield.
“He’s a third-year junior,” head coach Mike Tomlin said on Tuesday. “I don’t view that as a negative. I love to be a part of people’s growth and development, but at the same time, I don’t get amnesia. I don’t like that in the spring and then hate that in the fall. So as a leader, man, I embrace the get-better component of his profile, and sometimes, that’s going to require work. Sometimes, it’s not always going to be pleasant moments, but that’s what they pay me for.”
One of those unpleasant moments was an experiment by Tomlin to get Johnson some playing time by using him on the kickoff return team that failed spectacularly. Johnson, who returned a total of 15 kickoffs over his college career, averaged just 23.8 yards per return on eight returns before his blundered away a touchdown in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks by failing to cover a live ball in the end zone. That caused his benching from the kick returner role and he didn’t play at all the following week against the New England Patriots.
But last week against the Vikings, with starter Jaylen Warren sidelined with a knee injury, Johnson finally got an opportunity to show what he can do with the ball in his hands. Johnson got six carries, rushing for 22 yards — a 3.7 yards per carry average that much better represented his collegiate plate.
“I think that he’s going to continue to get better with opportunity,” Tomlin said. “He doesn’t have control over when those opportunities occur. So, when he gets them, he’d better make the best of them. I love the way that he’s working during the course of the work week from a...
