Pittsburgh's pool of wide receivers flooded with options

Matt Harmon and Liz Loza reflect on the Steelers' many receiving options after rookie Chase Claypool's 4-touchdown game.

Video Transcript

LIZ LOZA: Let's talk about Philadelphia at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh went ahead and completely blew apart all fantasy expectations. With the good sometimes comes some bad. The bad is that Diontae Johnson hurt his back--

MATT HARMON: Ay-ay-ay.

LIZ LOZA: --having trouble staying healthy. The good-- the, like, the glass half-full part of this analysis though, is that Chase Claypool, the rookie, had a four-touchdown day and completely dominated, showing off the measurables that tested so highly at the combine, the speed and the hops. I mean, he's got all the things. My question is, you know, we talked on the FFL halftime about how you said-- and I agreed-- that Claypool will start to push James Washington for touches. But now is Claypool pushing Johnson, who can't stay on the field?

MATT HARMON: I don't-- I think, at this point, like, Claypool's gonna be a tough genie to put back in the bottle, basically.

LIZ LOZA: Yeah.

MATT HARMON: You don't just go out there and have a four-touchdown day, and then it's just, like, yeah, that was cool, but see you in a couple weeks. Like, he's good. And Roethlisberger has been raving about the guy for a long time. And Roethlisberger's been raving about Johnson, we know he likes JuJu, whatever. But the point being here, like, if this was just some rando that popped up for a big game, you know, maybe they'd put him back on the shelf. But this is a player they drafted. Whatever. I think--

LIZ LOZA: Second round. That's a second-round pick.

MATT HARMON: I think the bigger concern really is, like, if you have JuJu Smith-Schuster, like, any hopes that you thought that he was going to be this like 140-target, 130-target beast, forget about it. Like, they're not-- that's not gonna be there, because Claypool even made the point after the game-- which I thought this, you know, is a good one-- he said, like, if it wasn't me that went off in this spot, it would have been one of our other guys, 'cause that's how deep we are at receiver.

And I think that that foursome there of JuJu, Johnson, James Washington, and Chase Claypool-- not in that order anymore-- like, I think Claypool's clearly gonna be ahead of Washington going forward. And then it is a question of how much he digs into the starting receivers, too. You know, that's not even to mention Eric Ebron, who-- he had six targets today. He's been a solid role player from the team, wasn't you know, an awesome fantasy player or anything today. But still, he's been getting reps.

Like, this team is deep at pass catcher. It's really hard for me to imagine that, you know, anyone is going to push that 130-target limit. And you didn't draft Diontae Johnson to be that guy. I mean, you drafted him as a potential breakout pick. And I think he can still be that if at some point he just has some better breaks in terms of his injury luck.

LIZ LOZA: Yeah.

MATT HARMON: But the one that you drafted is potentially that wide receiver one type guy was JuJu. And I think so far, with these guys continuing to emerge, I mean, Johnson already has emerged through the first two weeks of the season. And then, obviously, it's just wrench after wrench since then. Now Claypool is starting to stack big plays on big plays. That, I think, is the bigger takeaway is that this pass team is just gonna be much more spread out, I think, than we possibly could have thought going into the year.