Four Downs: A move outside for Steelers' JuJu Smith-Schuster
1. Putting the “wide” back in “receiver”
JuJu Smith-Schuster has become the Pittsburgh Steelers’ receiving leader this season, for the most part, by running routes out of the slot. But is that changing as the season hits its stretch run?
Through the first nine games of 2018, Smith-Schuster lined up in the slot for about three times more often (395 of his 530 offensive snaps, according to Pro Football Focus) than he lined up outside (132 snaps). That began to shift in the Nov. 18 win at Jacksonville, when for the first time this season Smith-Schuster ran more routes from the outside than from the slot (albeit just barely: 31-30). Last week at Denver, though, Smith-Schuster’s script was flipped: he was wide 47 times and inside for 19 snaps.
Per Pro Football Focus, 85.2 percent of Smith-Schuster’s receiving yards over the first nine games came when he lined up in the slot – but over the past two games, just 6.1 percent have come from the slot.
Why? For starters, the Steelers appreciate Smith-Schuster’s versatility and football IQ that allows him to play from anywhere. Against strong pass defenses (the Jaguars and Broncos qualify), the surprise element of moving Smith-Schuster around to exploit a matchup helped.
But looking ahead, is Eli Rogers’ pending return driving this? James Washington’s struggles have left the Steelers searching for a reliable receiving option after Antonio Brown, Smith-Schuster, James Conner and the tight ends. Rogers began practicing this week, his first since tearing an ACL last January. Rogers has been almost exclusively a slot receiver in his career, running routes from there more than six times as often as he’s been outside. That would seem to necessitate pushing Smith-Schuster to the outside.
2. Big Bos Man
Only one kicker in the NFL this season is making more money than the Steelers’ Chris Boswell ($8 million), a function of the four-year, $16.8 million contract extension he signed in the spring. Boswell, by annual average, in the NFL’s third-highest paid kicker. Next season, he will have the third-highest cap hit ($4.2 million) of any kicker – a figure that’s lower than the $4.8 million in “dead money” the Steelers will take on if they were to part ways with Boswell.
Put that way, it’s clear Boswell isn’t going anywhere. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing for the Steelers considering he was the AFC’s Pro Bowl kicker just 10 months ago. This season, though, has been a different story. Among those who have kicked for their teams for all 11 games this season, Boswell ranks last in the NFL in extra-point conversion percentage (89.2 percent) and kickoff-touchback percentage (55.7 percent), and he’s second-to-last in field-goal percentage (69.2 percent).
At least there’s one category Boswell leads all kickers in: touchdown passes.
3. Speaking of specialists…
The Steelers’ Jordan Berry is making $1.9 million this season, which puts him in the upper-middle class of NFL punter salaries. The only player to hold onto the Steelers’ punter job for at least two full consecutive seasons since Mike Tomlin took over in 2007, Berry is about to complete his fourth season in that position. As such, he’s scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent in the spring. With the assured lure of a younger (read: cheaper) option out there for the Steelers, will Berry be back in 2019?
Berry ranks 17 th in net average among those who have at least 40 punts this season (39.5) and 20 th in gross average (44.0). His 19-to-3 ratio of punts inside the 20 to those that were touchbacks is very good but not elite, as is his 4.37-seconds average hang time (per PFF).
4. Avoiding the “splash”
But Berry’s best attribute might be his ability to avoid the (negative) “splash play.” Only 17 of his 47 punts have been returned, a 29.8 ratio that is second-best in the NFL. He also hasn’t been a victim of any of the 10 blocked punts in the league this season; in fact, only one of Berry’s 238 career punts have been blocked. Berry has not had a return touchdown against him in his four seasons as Steelers’ punter. In what is also a credit to Danny Smith’s coverage teams, there have been just six punt returns of more than 18 yards against the Steelers in the four years of the Berry era.
Chris Adamski is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Chris at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.
