Steelers Now
When Omar Khan took over as the Pittsburgh Steelers general manager following the retirement of Kevin Colbert, he naturally brought about a new philosophy to team building, one that included bigger swings via free agency and the trade market. So far, the verdict on those moves is a mixed bag, with the DK Metcalf blockbuster acquisition being his biggest gamble to date. The Ole Miss product finished his first campaign in the steel city with 59 receptions, 850 receiving yards and a half dozen touchdown grabs. With his black and gold introduction now in the rear view mirror, what are the expectations for the two-time Pro Bowler moving forward?
After rewatching his film from this past season, there’s a fair amount of context required when discussing his lack of gaudy box score production. Pittsburgh made a splash to acquire one of the league’s premium explosive play generators and subsequently thrust him into one of the most dink-and-dunk aerial attacks that we’ve ever witnessed. Among 37 signal callers with at least 250 dropbacks, Aaron Rodgers ranked 37th in average depth of target. Metcalf is no stranger to safeties cheating his direction over the top either, but as the year wore on, coordinators devoted more attention in his direction because of the Steelers’ otherwise lack of talent in the receiver room. Long story short, he wasn’t exactly set up for success.
A receiver’s statistical output is always going to be in part a byproduct of the ecosystem in which they are operating within—from quarterback play, offensive scheme, play caller innovation, and hierarchy in the respective pecking order. With that being said, there are still ways that we can try to analyze a player’s performance mostly independent of those circumstances to figure out whether a playmaker of this caliber is capable of living up to being one of the game’s most expensive wideouts that also cost the club a second-round selection to obtain in the first place. Metcalf’s film from last season is very much a mixed bag across the board.
For starters, the Steelers were more intentional with getting the ball in his hands in space out on the perimeter, and it led to some of their most insane plays of the calendar year, like his 80-yard house call versus the Minnesota Vikings in Week 4. The top speed is very much intact, with Next Gen Stats clocking him at a blazing 21.17 miles per hour on the rep. His 7.4 yards after catch average was by far the top mark of his career, and to be honest, Arthur Smith could have still done more to get him the rock on runway crossing routes to get him the ball on the move where he doesn’t have to break stride. He’s still a big, physical receiver that smaller defensive backs hate to tackle, and those layup opportunities not only keep him engaged, but they also seem to amp him up.
Metcalf has long been a polarizing player for a myriad of reasons, and...
