There's little reason to worry about JuJu Smith-Schuster bouncing back for the Steelers in 2020.
And yet:
Yeah. Those. Here's the tweet that elicited such reactions:
Have a different mindset right now. Need to be the best me for my teammates, coaches, and especially the best fans in the world. Focused & working on bringing Pittsburgh another championship. ?
— JuJu Smith-Schuster (@TeamJuJu) April 30, 2020
It's all day with Smith-Schuster. Mention him on social media, and the negativity flows. Even when it's Smith-Schuster claiming he's focused on winning a Super Bowl, they'll find a way to twist his words and his motive.
And, hey, it's fair to a degree. Smith-Schuster posted just 42 receptions for 556 yards and three touchdowns in an injury-shortened 2019 campaign as the Steelers limped to a playoff-less, 8-8 finish. This after Smith-Schuster was supposed to emerge as the team's true No. 1 wide receiver with Antonio Brown out of the picture.
That's not good. At all. Smith-Schuster agrees:
"I didn’t make the play," Smith-Schuster was telling our Dejan Kovacevic of a crucial, late-season drop following the Steelers' 16-10 Week 16 loss to the Jets. "It’s not the first time I’ve let down my team or let down Steelers fans. But it’s the worst feeling in the world.
“I just didn’t make the play. Just didn’t make the catch ... If I make that catch, I go into the end zone, we score, that’s it. At the end of the day, that game is on me. That’s my fault. Sorry, everybody.”
Now, to put an image to his words:
There it is. Right through Smith-Schuster's hands. That very idea was symbolic of the Steelers' season as a whole. Ben Roethlisberger went down six quarters into the season, and the team struggled to a 1-4 start. They were cooked five games into the season — until they weren't.
Devlin 'Duck' Hodges notched his first career win out in Carson, Calif., leading the Steelers to a 24-17 victory over the Chargers. Mason Rudolph returned from injury in Week 8, and he rattled off three straight wins of his own. Then Myles Garrett and all that nonsense happened, followed by a poor first-half performance against the Bengals, and Rudolph went to the bench to the tune of duck calls across Steeler Nation. Hodges was back, and he helped orchestrate three more wins for the Steelers.
Suddenly, they were right back in the hunt, controlling their destiny in the AFC playoff race at 8-5. And then the Bills blitzed poor Hodges into the turf and handed him his first loss as a starter. Then the Jets and the Ravens did the same, and yeah. Right through the team's hands.
No playoffs.
With such a disastrous finish, the fingers had to point somewhere. Smith-Schuster, the video-game-playing, Pizza-Hut-eating, young-and-always-lit-AF third-year receiver became an easy, primary target. Only, just like so many passes from Hodges and Rudolph last year, the criticism was off the mark.
The conversation starts there. Give Smith-Schuster (and every other skill-position player on that offense) better quarterback play, and they perform better in 2019. All of 'em. The Steelers ranked 30th in total yards per game with 276.8 and 31st in passing with just 186.3 aerial yards per contest, floundering repeatedly on the offensive side of the ball.
Smith-Schuster, obviously, suffered from that.
The common counter-argument I've seen across social media and various forums here is, "Yeah, well how do you explain Diontae Johnson and James Washington then?!"
So, okay, let's play that game:
• Johnson: 59 receptions*, 680 yards, five touchdowns*
• Washington: 44 receptions, 735 yards*, three touchdowns
* led the team
Between them, Johnson and Washington led the Steelers in all major receiving categories. This ignores the fact that Johnson appeared in all 16 games, Washington appeared in 15 and Smith-Schuster appeared in just 12, but we'll let it ride. Look at those numbers. Pick the best performances, by category, from each and give them to Smith-Schuster to create the "ultimate" stat line from 2019: 59 receptions, 735 yards, five touchdowns. Now, step back and marvel at your work.
It still stinks, doesn't it?
The Steelers' offense was tragic in 2019. Johnson and Washington showed promise, no doubt, but their numbers weren't exactly stellar, either. For fun, check this out: Added together, Johnson and Washington combined for 103 receptions, 1,415 yards and eight touchdowns in 2019.
And now:
• Smith-Schuster in 2018: 111 receptions, 1,426 yards, seven touchdowns
We're literally one season removed from Smith-Schuster putting up a stat line that bests Johnson and Washington combined in 2019, and suddenly he's wearing the scarlet letter? Nah. Won't buy it.
It's not about absolving Smith-Schuster of any blame, either. He was bad in 2019. He dropped five passes, posting a 60 percent catch rate, lagging far behind the 73.4 catch percentage he posted as a rookie and the 66.9 percent rate as a sophomore. He fumbled at a terrible time (again), too. You might remember that one.
He did not live up to the No. 1 billing in any way, he did little to prove he could thrive outside of Brown's shadow and he did not significantly impact the team's offensive production in any way. In 2020, he has to be better.
But Smith-Schuster does not have a fumbling problem, and he does not have a problem catching the football. To argue this is to ignore facts.
To date, Smith-Schuster's accomplished the following:
• Steelers franchise leader, receiving yards for a rookie (917)
• First player in NFL history to score five touchdowns before turning 21
• Youngest player to 1,000 receiving yards
• Youngest player to record game with 150 receiving yards
• First player to score on two offensive plays of 97 yards or more
• Youngest player in NFL history to reach both 1,500 and 2,500 receiving yards
• Longest receiving touchdown in Steelers history (97 yards)
• Youngest Steeler to record 1,000 yard-plus in a season (2018)
• Fewest games needed to reach 1,500 career receiving yards (21 games)
He doesn't turn 24 years old until Nov. 22, which will be more than midway through the 2020 season, providing everything starts on time. Johnson, drafted two years after him, and Washington, drafted one year after him, are both older than Smith-Schuster.
Considering that, to cast away Smith-Schuster's fantastic career to date with the Steelers because of one down year in which every offensive player not named David DeCastro or Matt Feiler struggled to stand out would be foolish.
Smith-Schuster has plenty to prove in 2020. Without question. He still needs to show he can thrive as the team's No. 1 receiver. He needs to do a lot more of this:
In 2020, he'll have major help with all that. Roethlisberger's set to return at full health, Washington and Johnson will continue to grow and to improve and the influx of fresh talent in the form of Eric Ebron and Chase Claypool will inject extra life into the equation. Maybe the running game will exist, too. But if Smith-Schuster was only good because of Brown drawing the defense's attention, as some believe, then the team adding speed and size all around him will help him regain his prior form.
Roethlisberger knows it, and he's recently doubled down on his receiver, saying he was impressed by a less-visible side of Smith-Schuster throughout that rocky 2019 season.
“I think one of the most impressive things which I saw on the sideline and had communication with him was JuJu,” Roethlisberger recently said on the DVE Morning Show. “I think you saw a guy that wasn’t as productive as he wanted to be and as he was expected to be, but he was still able to go out there and be a leader for guys. Guys in that receivers room, guys were still looking up to him, still talking to him. He was out there giving it everything he had. It’s not easy for guys to do, but he took a selfless mentality and attitude into last season, and I think it showed for guys like me that could really see it.”
Roethlisberger still believes in him. Offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner still believes in him, too, stretching back to last season when he punctuated a late-October interview with the following:
“We get the ball to JuJu, then we’re all going to be winners.”
It all adds up to a bounce-back year for one of the most productive receivers to ever wear the black and gold.
And it all adds up those negative takes freezing over by the end of the 2020 campaign.
