The Pittsburgh Steelers still have some real sorting to do in the backfield, but one of the clearest questions now is whether Kaleb Johnson has any path to sticking on the 53-man roster.
The team’s top two running backs are set to be Rico Dowdle and Jaylen Warren, and head coach Mike McCarthy has made it plain what he wants from anyone filling out the room behind them. He isn’t looking for a specialist who only helps in one phase.
“I’m not a fan of a guy that’s just an exceptional special teams player, but he doesn’t contribute on offense or defense. That's just my personal preference," he said. "We want players who can play all four downs."
That stance puts Johnson in a tough spot. Pittsburgh drafted him in the 2025 third round with starter hopes in mind, but the last year has not gone the way the Steelers wanted. He got a chance to handle a featured workload in the team’s second preseason game and came away with 39 yards on 10 carries.
McCarthy also laid out the standard Johnson has to meet as a running back.
“Can he be a first, second, and third-down player?” McCarthy asked. “I think every play caller in the league would prefer to play with running backs that can play on first, second, and third down.”
If Johnson were making enough of an impact on special teams, that might give him another lane to the roster. Instead, that area appears to be another obstacle. McCarthy said that special teams often becomes the deciding factor for a third or fourth running back.
“The (other) determining factor, a lot of times, for that third or fourth running back, is what kind of player he is on special teams,” he said. “That’s how I view it. That’s the the priority I would put it in as far as the checklist.”
With Dowdle, Warren and Travis Homer seemingly the three names in the mix, Johnson’s place gets even harder to justify. He showed up as RB3 on the latest depth chart, but that listing doesn’t line up cleanly with how the room appears to be taking shape. Right now, he looks more like a player trending toward cutdown day than a roster certainty.
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