Player: RB Kaleb Johnson
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: With the Steelers signing RB Travis Homer, second-year Kaleb Johnson’s path to a roster spot just got considerably harder. While Homer will hardly have an offensive role, neither would Johnson behind Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle. What Homer does with aplomb, however, is contribute on special teams. That’s where Johson struggles, and why he ended his rookie year as a healthy scratch.
Unless Kaleb Johnson can take a major step forward as a special teams contributor this offseason, he may find himself looking for another team soon. The Steelers may even try to trade him if they don’t see him finding a home on the roster. A second-year former third-round pick, he could still have value in the eyes of other general managers.
Johnson was a pretty highly-regarded draft prospect a year ago. Throughout the football sphere, you didn’t have to look hard to find predictions of him having a great rookie season. He would take over the starting job sooner than later and rush for over 1,000 yards. The biggest narrative is that he was built for Arthur Smith’s offense.
Arthur Smith, of course, is no longer here, nor is the coaching staff he had as a rookie. The front office that valued Kaleb Johnson still is, but that only helps to a certain degree. He needs to prove his worth to Mike McCarthy, first and foremost.
The Steelers are already pretty well locked in with their top two running backs. They extended Jaylen Warren a year ago and this offseason signed Rico Dowdle, who played for McCarthy. There is an opening for the third running back spot, but as we saw with Kaleb Johnson last year, they are willing to dress only two if the third back can’t contribute on special teams. Travis Homer does that, so he may be the early favorite for that role.
With the 2025 season behind us and the new league year underway, we still have stock to take. Already promisinga year of change, they are shaking things up. That is unavoidable, of course, when you gut the coaching staff. Mike Tomlin’s resignation will fundamentally change this football team, including the playoffs on the roster.
After a long season, we have finally seen that this Steelers team is playoff-bound. But they also showed that their progress was actually minimal,since they made it no further. Two years in a row, with two different quarterbacks, they went 10-7 and lost in the Wild Card Round. The only differences are they ended the season on a higher note and won the division. But it didn’t help.
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