Coming into the NFL as a third-round pick and fresh off a dominant final season with the Iowa Hawkeyes, expectations were high for running back Kaleb Johnson. Landing with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he seemed like a perfect fit in former offensive coordinator Arthur Smith’s zone-rushing attack.
Johnson looked good early in training camp, but then preseason action started. He looked slow and unsure of himself and failed to carve out a role offensively.
Where he had a role right away though was as a kick returner, and late in the Week 2 matchup with the eventual Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks, things went disastrously wrong with Johnson not knowing the rules on a kickoff, leading to a Seattle touchdown.
Johnson was benched for the gaffe and didn’t have much of a role offensively the rest of the season. Entering Year 2 he has a fresh start with a new coaching staff, but he appears to be the odd man out in a running room featuring Jaylen Warren, free agent signee Rico Dowdle, veteran special teams ace Travis Homer, and rookie seventh-round pick Eli Heidenreich.
Longtime Steelers reporter Mark Kaboly isn’t ready to move on from Johnson though.
“I just haven’t seen anything from Kaleb Johnson to say I wanna give up on him yet and put him on a practice squad. You’re taking that into account that he might go somewhere else,” Kaboly said Monday, according to video via 93.7 The Fan. “He might not clear waivers. He might go somewhere. So, I don’t think I’m at that point yet of thinking he’s a total bust.
“We haven’t seen anything from him other than a missed, what, kickoff? That’s all we really saw.”
That kickoff gaffe was pretty dreadful and helped cost the Steelers the game. After that he very rarely saw the field.
As a rookie, Johnson touched the ball just 29 times, carrying the ball 28 times with one reception. He gained 78 total yards in his first NFL season. That’s nothing to write home about, especially when he was in a backfield that featured a pair of dual-threat weapons in Warren and team MVP Kenneth Gainwell.
But it’s also not fair to write Johnson off just because his rookie season went poorly. He gets a fresh start with a new coaching staff, one that is historically better at development on that side of the ball than the previous regime.
Granted, he wasn’t drafted by this current coaching staff, so he might be behind the 8-ball a bit. But he’s a talented player who was a third-round pick for a reason. What happened last year can’t be factored into the evaluation process this year with the new coaching staff.
We’ll see how Johnson looks come training camp and the preseason. Hopefully he’s able to take a step forward and compete for a roster spot because it’s too early to consider him a bust.