**Player: WR Ben Skowronek**
**Stock Value: Up**
**Reasoning:** _People who raised an eyebrow when the Steelers re-signed Ben Skowronek this offseason to a two-year deal are changing their tune. In the season opener, the veteran wide receiver caught a touchdown pass, recovered a fumble, and did lots of dirty work. Just call him Skow Dirt, or Dirtbag, if you prefer. (He prefers the former.)_
Ben Skowronek caught one pass for 22 yards and a touchdown, recorded a tackle, and recovered a fumble last Sunday. That alone would be an impressive day for a special teams ace. But a guy like him does a lot of work that isn’t going to appear on stat sheets, which is why the Steelers rewarded him this offseason.
Skowronek only played a relative handful of snaps, but good things have happened when he is on the field. The Steelers didn’t plan for him to score their first points of the season, but he was prepared for that opportunity. The Jets let him free over the middle, and Aaron Rodgers saw him. Rodgers joked after the game that he couldn’t believe his first touchdown pass as a Steelers would be to Skowronek.
Make no mistake, the Steelers re-signed Ben Skowronek primarily to play on special teams. He is their top gunner and is generally a do-everything guy. But he will play on offense, as he did last Sunday. A lot of his assignments will involve blocking, whether for runs or in the screen game, but he can catch a pass or two as well. Now, that might be the last touchdown of his career, for all we know.
Then again, he has a rapport with Aaron Rodgers, which never hurts. And Rodgers is the type of quarterback who is willing to throw to any eligible on a play if he is the open guy. It’s not the case for every quarterback that the entire field is open for him, but Rodgers is at that level. That helps guys like Ben Skowronek, so his greatest achievement of the year won’t be dunking a basketball in Malibu.
_With regular season on the way and the roster in place, it’s once again time to “take stock”. It took a while, but we finally saw some of that_ [_change the team talked about_](https://steelersdepot.com/2025/02/steelers-make-their-coaching-changes-they-still-manage-to-disappoint/) _after the season ended. Certainly, the move to trade for WR DK Metcalf qualifies as a change, not to mention the accompanying contract. Oh, and they also traded some guy named George Pickens, which people found significant._
_After a long offseason, we finally know what this Steelers team will look like for the 2025 season. The dust is long settled on both free agency and_ [_the 2025 NFL Draft_](https://www.nfl.com/draft/)_, and now we’re into the real thing__. What final moves might the team make, if any? They’ve certainly made a flurry of moves, though some question whether they make much difference. This is a Steelers team starving for postseason success, but how desperate are they for a playoff win in 2025?_