{"id":217178,"date":"2026-06-12T05:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/217178\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T05:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:39:28","slug":"comment-from-steelers-oc-makes-it-clear-why-pittsburgh-paid-up-for-darnell-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/217178\/","title":{"rendered":"Comment From Steelers OC Makes It Clear Why Pittsburgh Paid Up For Darnell Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Steelers just committed to TE Darnell Washington on an eight-figure APY salary, and to hear the coaches talk<\/a>, it\u2019s no surprise. HC Mike McCarthy has a history with tight ends, and OC Brian Angelichio is a former TE coach. Arthur Smith may have been known for his love for the position, but so does this new staff.<\/p>\n

And I think that\u2019s obvious, listening to Angelichio talk. While not addressing Darnell Washington specifically, it\u2019s obvious the Steelers have some plans for him. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly a position that has morphed into a lot of different ways. But they\u2019re a valuable piece, particularly when you can get tight ends that are able to be a weapon in the pass game\u201d, Angelichio said, via the Steelers\u2019 website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat seems to be the starting point now in this league, where those guys are important on third downs, red areas, first, second down in the play-pass game. And they\u2019ve got to be able to block, so the defense has to respect the run game when you\u2019re on the field. They\u2019re valuable players if you can get those tight ends that can really be successful in both\u201d.<\/p>\n

While Darnell Washington is not the second coming of Travis Kelce, he offers an intriguing combination as a blocker and catcher. The former is more finely honed, but he has steadily progressed in the latter<\/a> category. Last season, for example, he caught 31 passes for 364 yards. And if they needed more, he could have given them more.<\/p>\n

Mike McCarthy has already talked this offseason about how impressive Darnell Washington has been. And we know that that\u2019s no idle chatter, or he wouldn\u2019t be signed to a long contract extension right now. The Steelers clearly paid him relative to what they expect him to do in the future, more so than what he\u2019s already done. McCarthy may even be retooling his thinking<\/a> on offense based on what he\u2019s seen from Washington so far.<\/p>\n

Of course, he isn\u2019t the only one in the tight end room. The Steelers already committed an eight-figure APY extension to Pat Freiermuth years ago. And frankly, they underutilized him even more than they underutilized Washington last season. At the same time, this is an offense that figures to use 11 personnel more than the Steelers have in years. That might depend, however, on rookie Germie Bernard hitting an accelerated learning curve.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, the Steelers have two tight ends they\u2019re confident using with great regularity. At least, that\u2019s what one would think when you\u2019re paying each in excess of $10 million per season. But how will Mike McCarthy and Brian Angelichio balance all the pieces? How will they distribute snaps between Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington with the third receiver role?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steelers just committed to TE Darnell Washington on an eight-figure APY salary, and to hear the coaches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[83428,3276,73,75,74,1833,995],"class_list":["post-217178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-brian-angelichio","tag-darnell-washington","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}