Mike Tomlin announced on Tuesday that Kaleb Johnson is getting benched from his kick return duties in the short term after his costly Week 2 gaffe that arguably tossed the game away to the Seattle Seahawks. It’s an understandable course of action, but is it the right call?
“He can’t feel good about himself today. I can tell you that,” Mark Kaboly said via 93.7 The Fan’s Pomp and Joe Show. “After hearing what Tomlin said yesterday, after what happened on Sunday, he’s probably questioning everything he does right now.”
Part of the reason they likely had him on the kick return unit in the first place was a lower-risk option to get him used to the speed of the game in an effort to ramp him up towards a bigger role on offense. He only received two offensive snaps in each of the first two games.
If their goal is to integrate him into the offense this season, it’s now more unclear than ever how they plan to accomplish that. It doesn’t feel right to reward him with an increased role on offense, but they aren’t going to give him a helmet on game day to play two total snaps on offense and zero on special teams. That would be a waste of a game day helmet.
It’s possible the Steelers could opt to elevate Trey Sermon from the practice squad and make Johnson a healthy scratch on game day. Good leaders give their players a chance to overcome adversity. Benching and then possibly taking away his helmet feels like the opposite of that. It could affect his mentality moving forward.
There is a reason why teammates widely came to his defense after the mistake. Many of them have been in his shoes with a costly error and letting down the team.
There is always a fine line to walk with rookies between tough-love coaching and making sure their development is on the right track. This has the potential to fall out of balance in that regard. To be fair, he also had a fumble in Week 1 on kick return. It was recovered by the Steelers, but that’s not really the point.
“I think he’s hesitant right now, he doesn’t believe in himself,” Kaboly said. “He definitely lost some confidence now. I understand why Tomlin’s benching him, but I don’t know if that’s the best thing to do for him long term…I think right now he’s a little unsure of himself, which makes him slow down, which makes his burst not there.”
Johnson drew rave reviews early in training camp for his burst, but that waned throughout the course of the summer and has looked non-existent on the field throughout the preseason and on his kick return duties. If confidence is one of the issues, his mistakes (and the team’s subsequent actions) probably aren’t helping matters.
Maybe this will just be a redshirt learning year for Kaleb Johnson. But I’m not sure that’s what they had in mind when they drafted him in the third round.
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