Kaleb Johnson had a brutal rookie season with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He made a huge special teams mistake in Week 2, and he struggled to bounce back from that. He ended the year with only 69 rushing yards — only eight more than 42-year-old QB Aaron Rodgers. While he could still turn his career around, Chris Simms believes the Steelers agreeing to terms with Rico Dowdle is a bad sign for Johnson’s future in Pittsburgh.
“It’s a little concerning,” Simms said Thursday on his Unbuttoned podcast. “I liked [Johnson] at Iowa. There was one thing that bothered me and I wonder if it’s coming to fruition… There was a guy who looks the part, big, physical, you go, ‘He runs good.’
“But every time it comes to one-on-one with a DB, you go, ‘Can he ever break the tackle? Can he ever run anybody over? Can he ever put his head down and drive the pile a little?’ I think that’s Kaleb Johnson. That was my eval of him coming out. For all the great physical attributes he had, I did not love the physicality in which he ran…That bothered me about him coming out.”
After a Johnson’s lost rookie season Mike Tomlin stepped down as the Steelers’ head coach. That led to the team bringing in an almost entirely new coaching staff. Mike McCarthy and company aren’t nearly as attached to Johnson as the previous regime.
Dowdle has history with McCarthy, too. He entered the league as an undrafted free agent for the Dallas Cowboys in 2020, which was McCarthy’s first year as Dallas’ head coach. It took Dowdle a couple of years to get going, but he was the Cowboys’ lead running back in 2024, and he put up over 1,000 yards.
Unfortunately for him, McCarthy and the Cowboys parted ways after that season. Dowdle was a free agent, and he signed with the Carolina Panthers. While he didn’t begin as the starter there, he did enough to earn more playing time, putting up more than 1,000 rushing yards again.
Dowdle’s a strong runner, and he and Jaylen Warren figure to be the leaders in that room. As a result, that leaves little room for Johnson. Simms outlined his issues with the young running back, and Johnson didn’t really dispel those concerns as a rookie.
He should get a chance to prove himself in the offseason. However, it’s going to be difficult for him to be anything more than the team’s third running back. At that point, Johnson needs to provide some special teams value in order to justify keeping a roster spot. Otherwise, the Steelers might feel it’s time to move on from him.
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