After grading outside linebackers on Monday, we flip to the offensive side of the ball and look at the Steelers' high-flying receivers. The Steelers added reinforcements to the group after 2016 in the form of Justin Hunter and JuJu Smith-Schuster, while knowing that Martavis Bryant would be back from his suspension.
After seeing Antonio Brown work alongside Eli Rogers, Cobi Hamilton, Demarcus Ayers, Darrius Heyward-Bey and a broken-fingered Sammie Coates in the AFC Championship game loss to the Patriots the previous season, the team made sure to keep six wide receivers on the roster throughout 2017. The decision ended up paying off when they called upon Hunter as a fifth option once Brown went down late in the season.
Those reinforcements brought the Steelers receivers group back to being a complete unit:
Justin Hunter
Hunter was a simple and cheap free agent for the Steelers in 2017 who was an insurance policy for most of the season. He was made inactive for 11 games and only had 10 targets, primarily because of his limited skill set.
The Titans drafted Hunter in the second round because he's 6-foot-4 and fast enough to get behind defenders. But he wasn't a sharp route-runner and his hands were anything but consistent, which led to him playing for three different teams in just four seasons before he got to the Steelers.
The Steelers got him to basically fulfill what they hoped Coates could be, a depth receiver who can win in the red zone with his height and use his speed to break open against the less-talented defensive backs he would match up with while Brown and the other Steelers' receivers attracted the high talent.
Hunter didn't really do much, but his best moment came in the red zone against the Texans when he was able to get physical and break open after an extended play for Ben Roethlisberger to find him for the first touchdown of the game.
Hunter won't be a star, but as a sixth option for cheap off the free agent market, he lived up to his expectations. He's a free agent again in 2018, but I don't see the Steelers keeping him around unless they don't find a late round receiver in the draft they feel is worth a shot.
Darrius Heyward-Bey
If there was an award for hustle, Heyward-Bey would be in the running for the Steelers. He's earned his keep over the years by being a speedster for the offense and a regular special teams option for Mike Tomlin. Heyward-Bey's speed made him the seventh-overall pick by the Raiders, but he lacked the detail in his game to make him an elite, or even a really good, receiver.
What he does for the Steelers is capitalize when he gets his number called. He was targeted three times all season, one of which came on a fake punt pass by Robert Golden, and had two carries. But one of those carries was a reverse that opened up the scoring in their final game of the season as he blew past the Browns' secondary.
He accomplished the same kind of score last year against the Dolphins and continued to earn a roster spot in 2017. He's on the roster for a cheap $1.3 million cap hit as a veteran receiver with speed who can be a special teams ace. That's a lot of value for paying almost nothing.
Eli Rogers
Rogers ended his 2016 season by fumbling in the AFC championship and started 2017 by fumbling a punt return in Week 3 against the Bears. That put him in the doghouse for a while.
He had 11 targets in the Steelers' first two games, but after his fumble, he didn't see another target for a month. With the emergence of Smith-Schuster and the return of Bryant, Rogers saw a lot fewer opportunities to make plays for the Steelers.
He eventually earned his way back into the team's good graces when he started making more tough catches over the middle, his biggest of the season being when he caught his only touchdown by beating Eric Rowe in the slot for a 18-yard touchdown catch to open up the scoring against the Patriots.
Rogers' primary role was to be a shifty slot receiver who picked on the lesser cornerbacks of other teams. He set up Rowe with a simple stutter step to break free and never allowed Rowe to put his hands on him:
Rogers' toughest critic all season seemed like his quarterback. I was on the sidelines in Latrobe during training camp as he would run routes and make mistakes, earning shouts of, "Come on Eli!" from Roethlisberger more than a few times.
But what Rogers had to learn to accomplish was to win in any moment he was on the field. None of the plays exemplified that attitude more than when Le'Veon Bell ran for a 9-yard touchdown against the Titans on Thursday night football.
Rogers lined up as the point man of a bunch formation when the Steelers called a zone run to Bell. Rogers had the Titans' best cornerback, Logan Ryan, who had given the Steelers fits with the Patriots in 2016, lined up in his face. Rogers not only gets his hands inside the frame of Ryan, but he drives him seven yards off the ball and seals him to the outside, giving Bell the chance to score:
What you can't see is Roethlisberger's reaction to the play. As soon as the officials threw up their hands to signal the score, Roethlisberger emphatically pointed right to Rogers and ran up to him to offer congratulations for the key block that created Bell's opportunity.
Rogers showed up as a reliable depth option for the Steelers late in the season and was rocking against the Jaguars in the playoffs with five catches on five targets for 42 yards. But, unfortunately for him, he tore his ACL in that game and had to watch as his team was eliminated from the playoffs.
Rogers redeemed himself this season primarily because he wasn't asked to do as much as a third option who could be a playmaking receiver for the team. He's a spot player who can come through in certain moments, but still has to work on his consistency.
Adding to Rogers' misfortune is the fact that 2017 was a contract year for him. Dale Lolley talked to Rogers last weekend about his recovery and the offseason of uncertainty he faces. The 25-year-old is a restricted free agent who could be brought back for a small cap hit, but only time will tell what happens with all the roster management issues the Steelers face.
Martavis Bryant
Bryant returned from his suspension looking out of sync with Roethlisberger. His return meant the Steelers' deep-ball game from 2015 could resurface. But it took a while for Roethlisberger and Bryant to find their groove, as game after game, Roethisberger missed Bryant when he beat cornerbacks by a step or more.
When Bryant broke to the middle, Roethlisberger threw to the outside, and vice-versa in other instances. Sometimes, Roethlisberger would miss altogether, while on others, Bryant would underestimate a deep ball and come up short. Through the first nine games, Bryant had only 23 catches for 306 yards and a single touchdown.
But the Steelers saw the two start to connect late in the season. Even without the huge numbers, Bryant became the deep threat for the offense who could do more than run fly routes. He scored two more touchdowns on the season in different fashions. The first came against the Packers when he worked off the press and caught a floater from Roethlisberger over top of the defense:
His finest moment came when he had to make a one-handed touchdown grab with the Patriots' star cornerback, Stephon Gilmore, holding his jersey and left arm for the entire route. When Brown went down, the Steelers needed someone else to step up, and Bryant did just that in the red zone:
Bryant still needs to polish his routes to be more consistent, and he needs to stay out of the negative press with Instagram comments and off-field drama. But he still flashes the potential of being one of the most dangerous receivers in the NFL in the final year of his rookie contract with the Steelers.
His dynamic speed and uncanny playmaking ability are still there, but Bryant and Roethlisberger need to make sure the team can tap into it in 2018 to present the next-level kind of threat Bryant looked like in 2014 and 2015. That might not be easy, considering the amount of targets the offense has in Bell, Smith-Schuster and Brown, but having Bryant on the field with those three players ensures that defenses can't double all the team's playmakers.
JuJu Smith-Schuster
The addition of Smith-Schuster added more layers of threats to an already dynamic offense. Smith-Schuster was not only a playmaking wide receiver, but a physical blocker at the point of attack who could take the place of a blocking tight end.
While there was talk of Smith-Schuster's strength in the offseason, he announced his presence in the team's home opener against the Vikings when he laid out all-pro safety Harrison Smith:
Smith-Schuster made several huge blocks throughout the season, but what shouldn't be overlooked is how he mixed his understanding of the game and his responsibilities with his athletic talents. Take his first catch against the Titans as an example of that combination.
It was 3rd-and-11 for the Steelers in the red zone and they were trying to put the Titans away and continue their win streak. Smith-Schuster saw the two-high safety look and knew his slant would be an option for Roethlisberger to split the defense.
He set up his route, never telegraphing it until his break in order to prevent veteran safety Jonathan Cyprien from reading it. When I talked to Smith-Schuster after the game, he told me that he knew, because of the two-high safety look, that he had to buy just enough time to keep Cyprien back.
His physical strength allowed him to fight off the line of scrimmage against the press and catch passes in traffic. But what wasn't expected from the rookie out of USC was how well he ran his routes all season. They got sharper every week and the team saw him post 917 yards on 58 catches for seven touchdowns.
His highlight of the season was his 97-yard touchdown catch and run against the Lions on Sunday night football. It almost was his 69-yard reception against the Patriots that put the Steelers in position to win the game late and leave them in the driver's seat to earn a No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs.
But in all those moments, Smith-Schuster could be seen running his routes more sharply than most veterans in the NFL. If he continues to improve, the Steelers might be on the verge of having another great receiver.
Antonio Brown
Meanwhile, the team does have the best receiver in the NFL in Brown. His 101 catches marked an NFL record of five consecutive seasons with 100 receptions, and his 1,533 yards in just 14 games led the league. He did all that despite suffering multiple injuries and facing the best cornerbacks the league had to offer.
While we could focus on some of his late heroics that won the Steelers several games, we are going to look at some of his most impressive moments against All-Pro cornerbacks. Against Jacksonville, Brown shook off Jalen Ramsey when Roethlisberger was having the worst game of his career.
Brown is dangerous at any point he's on the field because of how detailed he plays the game. He taps his toes in the most impossible situations, finds a way to hold onto a pass even if it means pinning the ball to his helmet, and goes up amongst a sea of three or more defenders and finds ways to come down with the ball.
But maybe the detail of what makes Brown the best of the best is how he has the best release of any receiver. He doesn't just shoot out of his stance, he starts his routes looking like he's gliding and never telegraphing where he's going. Even all-pro cornerback A.J. Bouye couldn't find a way to bottle Brown up at the line of scrimmage.
Notice how he starts his route by running straight at Bouye and then, with the slightest tilt of his shoulder, gets the cornerback to make one missed step. Bouye takes one step thinking Brown is going to his outside shoulder and does a decent job of recovering quickly in order to not let him run free.
But a single step is all that Brown needs to get the position he's going for as he swims over Bouye and then uses the same shoulder that faked his opponent out to box Bouye away from ever being able to get in front of him. Bouye tries every way that he can to recover between holding Brown's jersey and going behind Brown to swipe at the ball, which he even touches, but cannot stop the 43-yard touchdown catch:
Brown isn't the best because he goes up against mediocre players and racks up huge numbers, he's the best because he's faced the top cornerbacks across the league and still lights up the stat sheet. I could spend several articles studying the many different things he does to be as amazing as he is, and maybe I will, but when it comes to grading wide receivers, there's none with higher marks than him.
STATE OF THE UNIT
You would be hard-pressed to find a team in the NFL with a better stable of receivers than what the Steelers have on their roster. Bryant could be the top receiving option on several teams with his speed and playmaking ability. Smith-Schuster was the best rookie receiver in the league with almost 1,000 yards. And behind them was a group of detailed backups who only needed to win in rare moments.
And leading that group is still the best receiver, and maybe the best weapon, in the NFL. The only receivers from this group not under contract are Rogers and Hunter.
That's an embarrassment of riches going into 2018 with the team's franchise quarterback returning after looking on fire in the second half of the season with this same group. So long as they are healthy, this offense has the chance to be legendary.
Grade: A
Dale's Stock: With the emergence of Smith-Schuster, the Steelers once again showed they have a knack for finding receivers of all shapes and sizes in the draft, continually restocking the position with relative ease. Brown is the best in the business. But given the age and contract status of the group, don't be surprised if another late-round receiver is added in the draft. Marcus Tucker also showed promise on the practice squad. This is a group that has the potential to be even better in 2018 than it was last season, which is scary.
Carter's Classroom will be back on Friday with final grades on the Steelers' secondary.