Rookie dazzles in spotlight
Smith-Schuster makes more big plays in Antonio Brown’s absence
For a player who said he never played in cold weather like Sunday’s, JuJu Smith-Schuster was red-hot.
That, though, is nothing new for the Steelers rookie receiver, not in the past seven games, especially not in the past two without Antonio Brown.
“Was that 5 degrees? … Wow,” Smith-Schuster said. “I was on the sideline and Ben [Roethlisberger] said, ‘You don’t know what cold is. Cold is like January, 8:30 p.m., below freezing.’ I was like, ‘Wow, that is definitely a day I’ll be wearing a jacket.’ ”
Defenses might need him to wear a straight-jacket. That appears to be the only way to slow his surge through the league.
On a day when the temperature was 11 degrees — coldest for a game at Heinz Field — Smith-Schuster lit a fire under his teammates with a season-high nine catches for 143 yards and a 96-yard kickoff return for touchdown.
He is the only player in the NFL to have two touchdowns of 90-plus yards this season, and his 265 combined yards (143 receiving plus 122 kickoff return) were the second-most by a rookie in team history (273, Charles Johnson, Dec. 24, 1994, at San Diego).
“The kid’s confidence is at an all-time high,” said receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, who scored on a 29-yard reverse in the first quarter. “He believes in himself and he’s making plays. Everyone sees that he’s going to be a great player and he’s just showing us he is.”
About the only thing Smith-Schuster failed to do right in the 28-24 victory against the Browns was make a good snowball after his 20-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter. He tried by grabbing some of the snow piled against the wall in the north end zone, but it fell apart when he threw it at teammate Martavis Bryant to celebrate the score. “It wasn’t so packed,” Smith-Schuster said.
Smith-Schuster, though, has been packing in splash plays at a ridiculous clip lately. In his past three games, he has 21 catches for 332 yards and produced plays of 34, 36, 46, 49, 69 and 96 yards.
After catching 17 passes for 231 yards in his first seven games, he has 41 catches for 686 yards and four TDs in his past seven. His 917 receiving yards, the most by a rookie in team history, were also the most by a rookie in the league in 2017. He did it despite missing two games. What’s more, his six catches of 40-plus yards were tied for fourth most in the league, just one behind Brown (7).
“He shows everybody his ability,” said Bryant, who had a season-high six catches for 65 yards Sunday. “He’s having a good rookie year.” Maybe great. In addition to his receiving totals against the Browns, Smith-Schuster did something the Steelers hadn’t managed in seven years.
His 96-yard kickoff return for touchdown, which came after the Browns tied the score at 21-21, was the team’s first since Antonio Brown did it his rookie season in 2010 against Tennessee — the first time Brown touched the ball in an NFL game.
Smith broke one tackle, split two players — kicker Zane Gonzalez and cornerback Mike Jordan — then outraced cornerback C.J. Smith and wide receiver Ricardo Louis to the end zone.
“I was thinking, dang, this is what it’s like to go against a kicker,” Smith-Schuster said. “Hold on, let me try to cut back in, so I cut back in. I saw another guy, a safety, came in and I just stiff-armed him and ran in to score.”
“You see what JuJu is capable of doing,” said linebacker Tyler Matakevich, whose partial block of a Browns punt set up a touchdown. “That kid is special.”
And red hot.