Finding the next Steelers No. 2 WR
Hint: It helps to get tight with Big Ben
Imagine the emotional roller-coaster for James Washington this offseason. First, the Steelers traded Antonio Brown, opening a clear path to more playing time and targets as a second-year wide receiver. Then, they signed a young veteran who has been an off-and-on starter, off-and-on producer in this league for five years and two teams, in Donte Moncrief.
If that weren’t enough of a wrench in Washington’s path, the Steelers then used their second draft pick on wideout Diontae Johnson at No. 66 overall, just six slots behind where they took Washington a year earlier.
Where does all that leave the leading receiver in Oklahoma State history as he tries to find his way in the Steelers pecking order?
“You can’t really focus on things that someone else does,” Washington said Thursday as he and the Steelers wrapped their first week of OTA practices. “You’ve just got to continue to be the best you. That’s the thought I had in the back of my mind the entire time.”
The best Washington might be this current version, the one that has slimmed from a 2018 playing weight as heavy as 225 pounds — “I was pretty big,” he admits — down to under 210 last time he checked.
That can only help Washington flash the trademark deep speed he showed in college, or to climb the ladder to snag passes, as he has done a few times already in OTAs. He’ll need to keep making plays from now until deep into the summer in order to stay ahead of the curve in what has become a crowded receiving corps.
“I like it. It brings out the best in all of us,” Washington said. “But, at the end of the day, we’re still boys. We’re still a team.”
He hasn’t known the two newest receivers for more than a month or two now, so Washington must’ve bonded quickly with Moncrief when the two traveled to Georgia with other pass-catchers to spend some time with Ben Roethlisberger. Like Washington, Moncrief insisted he wasn’t deterred by the Steelers drafting Johnson, despite it muddling the hierarchy of the post-Brown depth chart.
“You always have to take the best guy, and, obviously, he was the best guy on the board,” said Moncrief, who turns 26 in August. “You’ve got to take advantage of it and teach him the game. I’m going on Year 6, and he’s a rookie, so he’s been watching me and I’ve been watching him. He’s going to learn from me, and I’m going to learn from him. It’s fun. He’s a young guy, but he’s ready to go.”
Moncrief hit all the right talking points, calling his new locker room “great … there’s no negativity here, and that’s a good thing.” As a 2014 second-round pick who played his first four years with Indianapolis and last season with Jacksonville, Moncrief could’ve had any number of preconceived notions about the Steelers and their quarterback.
To Moncrief, Roethlisberger is simply “a Hall of Fame quarterback” and “a great guy” who always impressed him when their teams faced each other. Wearing a jersey number one digit higher than the No. 10 he sported for the Colts and Jaguars, Moncrief is learning how he can make a 7-11 connection happen.
“If you don’t get your head around, that ball will hit you in the face,” he said of working with Roethlisberger. “The main thing is just timing. He’s trying to learn me and I’m trying to learn him, so it’s a process.”
Speaking of Roethlisberger reinstalling the WiFi in a mostly renovated room, Washington drilled down to the root of his inconsistent rookie year with this summation: “It was more of the fact that when you’re in there with ‘7’ you don’t want to mess up.”
Lest that be misconstrued, Washington said he appreciated how Roethlisberger handled him throughout his first season, which included public comments challenging Washington to do more for the offense in his role.
“For sure. I mean, it’s hard coaching,” Washington said. “I’ve been hard-coached my entire life. It wasn’t really nothing new to me, but it kind of helped me get back on track a little bit and get back to where I needed to be. … He’s a captain. That’s what a captain’s supposed to do.”
One thing we know for sure is, that captain will be under center for the Steelers come the regular season. It’s anyone’s guess who will line up opposite JuJu Smith-Schuster the first time Roethlisberger drops back to pass.
“I’ve got to show him I can run any route, show him I can have fun, come out here and gain his trust,” Moncrief said. “This is where it starts.”