The Pittsburgh Steelers needed some major upgrades in their wide receiver room after a disappointing 2024 season. General manager Omar Khan wasted no time, trading for star wide receiver DK Metcalf from the Seattle Seahawks and signing him to a five-year deal.
Metcalf, 27, is entering his seventh season in the NFL, where he’ll play for his fourth new offensive coordinator and most likely his third new starting quarterback (unless Russell Wilson re-signs with Pittsburgh). As Metcalf joins the Arthur Smith-led offense, he’ll most likely experience a route tree adjustment.
At this point, Metcalf’s strengths as a route runner and weaknesses are well established.
Yahoo Sports’ Matt Harmon discussed how Metcalf will fit in Smith’s offense, concluding that his strengths should play well into what Smith wants out of his X receiver.
“I do really like the way he fits, and potentially could be seeing a route tree adjustment in Arthur Smith’s offense,” said Harmon. “If we think about Arthur Smith’s offense, we think about these big, in-breaking routes off play-action concepts. That’s really where I want to see DK get going at this point. Runway stuff, slants, digs, posts, these big in-breakers; all of his success rates on those routes even in this down season were at or above the NFL average…If you look at X receivers in Arthur Smith’s offense, they run a lot of those routes. I do think he’s a good player, and I do like how he’s going to be used as the X receiver, the number one target in this offense.”
Harmon included a quick breakdown of his signature “reception perception” chart, which you can see below.
DK Metcalf route chart 2024
The chart shows Metcalf’s 2024 success rates on each core route in the standard route tree. Anything highlighted in green is above the league average (yellow is around average, and red is below average). As you can see, Metcalf excelled running digs (78.4% success) and slants (83.6%), two in-breaking routes that Arthur Smith utilized for AJ Brown with the Titans and Drake London with the Falcons. Additionally, his post-route success rate was a respectable 69.2% last season. As mentioned in the video breakdown, Metcalf is much better as a “one cut and go” receiver rather than a “stopping down” receiver (hence the poor curl and comeback route numbers).
Watching the Steelers’ offense last season, they didn’t seem to prioritize these in-breaking route concepts that are generally essential in Smith’s offenses (although Mike Tomlin might not be so aligned). That can largely be attributed to personnel. Russell Wilson prefers to throw outside the numbers, where he can put touch on balls down the sidelines, instead of zipping them over the middle. Additionally, the Steelers had no wide receivers that were particularly strong running slants, digs, and other in-breaking routes. Diontae Johnson was exceptional on those in-breaking routes, and when he was traded last offseason, George Pickens and Co. weren’t able to fill that role.
So the Steelers went and got Arthur Smith his perfect X receiver.
Metcalf should be used exactly how AJ Brown was used in Tennessee, where nearly half of his routes run were either slants, digs, or posts. By targeting the middle of the field more consistently, George Pickens should be able to get more separation on the outside. Additionally, defenses won’t be able to get away with playing single-high safety against the Steelers. On top of that, a 6-foot-4 Metcalf can certainly go over the top and catch some go-balls.
If the Steelers can weaponize Metcalf in the middle of the field, I can’t imagine how opposing defensive backs will position themselves against the terrifying duo of 6-foot-3 Pickens and 6-foot-4 Metcalf.
Whether it’s Mason Rudolph, Aaron Rodgers, or even Duck Hodges (I’m just joking), the Steelers wide receiver room should instill fear in opposing teams instead of fear in Steelers fans like they did last season.
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