Many expected Kaleb Johnson to take over the Steelers’ primary running back position sooner than later—so what happened? While that goal may have been overly ambitious, he went the complete opposite direction. In fact, he finished his rookie season on the bench.
A third-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Kaleb Johnson played all of 62 snaps last season for the Steelers. That includes 11 snaps on special teams—a very important 11 snaps. Understanding the workload Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell had, the Steelers gave Johnson the kick-return role.
Unfortunately for them, and for him, he failed spectacularly. In the second week of the season, Johnson badly botched a kick return. The Seahawks exploited his mistake of not fielding a kick, recovering the ball in the end zone for an easy touchdown. He spent some time on the bench after that and never played on special teams again.
Steelers beat writer Mike DeFabo wonders whether how the Steelers handled the aftermath of that gaffe played a role in how Kaleb Johnson’s first NFL season unfolded. Discussing two young players, including WR Roman Wilson, he still sees hope for the pair.
“Wilson just needs to play through his mistakes. He just needs to play, period, if the Steelers are ever going to get anything out of him”, he wrote for The Athletic. “And I’m probably higher on Johnson than most. I still think he can be productive. The way the Steelers handled his botched kick return ruined his confidence”.
While Johnson had some experience returning kicks in college, he didn’t exactly make millions in NIL money from it. The Steelers drafted him because he was a hard-nosed runner in college. They wanted him to be that in Pittsburgh, but so far, he hasn’t shown the style that they scouted.
Johnson only dressed for 10 games last season. He rushed for 69 yards on 28 attempts with just a 25-percent run success rate. Those 28 rushing attempts produced a whopping two first downs. He caught 1 pass on 2 targets for 9 yards, the other he dropped. And he also fumbled once.
But did the Steelers bruise his ego and shatter his confidence when they benched him and took him off kick returns? They couldn’t leave Kaleb Johnson in that role just for the sake of his confidence level, though. His performance in that role was to the detriment of the team. But did benching him for a game and then giving him extremely infrequent opportunities set him back?
There are some players who are emotionally led, and they struggle when they lack confidence. Former Steelers WR Limas Sweed was certainly one. Even Kaleb Johnson seemed to hint at it being an emotional game for him. He saw kick returns as a tone-setter to knock out the butterflies—that is, the nerves, the jitters—to start games. Still, ultimately, Kaleb Johnson is responsible for his own play with the opportunities he saw.
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