Bye Kaleb Johnson

Iowa is a run first, run second, and if possible, run third offense. It's designed to make the RBs look good and the WRs to look, well, not so good.

 

Too many whiffs on 3rd round picks lately.

 

I think we could expand that to most of our drafts (save perhaps the last one or two, where the jury is still out).

None of our first round picks from 2018 to 2023 are left on the team. Had we hit on those picks with different players, we would currently have another 3-4 good contributing players (at a minimum).

 

Not drafting all that well and signing free agents who don't live up to expectations is why we haven't won a playoff game in a decade.. and when you do draft an all pro, but have to ship him away after a couple years for peanuts, well that sucks too..

 

Agreed - there is much to say about our lack of success, discipline, coaching, etc.

Having said the above, I think our single biggest issue is the failures of drafting good players.

In the early 2000’s, we hit on almost all of our 1st round picks and some later round picks. We even mixed in a few key free agents and undrafted players.

From 2000 to 2012, almost all of our 1st round picks turned into starters. From 2013 and on, the list is pretty slim…..TJ Watt……

 

3 made it this year and elsewhere it was shown over the last years the Steelers have been above average in the 3rd round

 

Kaleb probably will probably do better in a different running scheme.

 

I was going to say too many whiffs on 1st round picks as well, which is way worse. I just hope Troy and Max help break this unfortunate trend, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

DeMarvin Leal, Kendrick Green, Justin Layne, Sammie Coates, Dri Archer, Curtis Brown, Kraig Urbik, Bruce Davis, and Willie Reid have all been various levels of suck during the last 20 years LMAO

I would say Dri Archer could potentially be the biggest loser of the bunch. Many of these players never made it past their rookie four year deal, while some (Archer, Brown, Davis, and Reid) were out of the league before their 4 years was up.

 

Not many Iowa RB's turn into quality NFL players. I am pretty sure Ladell Betts and Shonn Greene are the only ones I can remember having any relevance at the NFL level....

 

Kaleb Johnson was the anti- Will Howard.

Will Howard's preseason gave you no reason to cut him. Kaleb Johnson's preseason gave you no reason to keep him.

 

Out of 177 Div. 1 teams, Iowa finished 168th in passing yards per game in 2025. Which is why everyone looks at Wetjen and thinks he didn't do anything in college. In 2024, Kaleb was on a team that finished 25th in rushing yards out of 177 teams.

 

About 30% of the rookies resign after their rookie contract. Steelers aren't an outlier.

 

Nope. He will be out of the league in two years. Doesn’t have the acceleration, the point of attack quickness and zero lateral movement. He looks like a slower version of Ron “No Gain” Dayne.

 

Never said they were. The person I responded to was saying that Kaleb was the worst third rounder they could remember. I listed a few that could be considered in the same realm from across the last 20 years. Reid and Archer might be worse… maybe. They’re the only ones at the same level imo

 

Dang, I forgot about Dayne. Though, Dayne was able to carve out a few solid seasons and last 7 years in the league. I know he was supposed to be amazing and was a huge disappointment, but 7 years at RB is nothing to scoff at

 

I wish I was able to put 7 years in the NFL. My financial situation would be far better.

We always talk about busts, but I don't think everyone understands how good these guys are at playing football. The players that get cut are better at what they do than almost anyone doing anything else. Professional sports takes the best talent available and reduces that number down to a very, very elite pool of pool of players. Just making it to camp and surviving through preseason to be cut just short of the 53-man roster is quite an accomplishment.

People like to crush players that don't live up to where they were drafted, but I wish I was good enough to make it that far in the sport....or any sport.

 

I'm quite amazed they got a 6th in a trade.

 

Let's be brutally honest, who you draft doesn't mean a lot when you have sub-par coaching.

It's like putting a good engine in a race car but your driver is blind.

 

Exactly, and thats why it would be stupid IMO to not get JPJ, and Zack Frazier under contract as soon as possible

 

This.
Over 81,000 kids play college football every year, and they whittled down to what gets drafted, and who can actually make the NFL, and even so I believe there are some that can slip through the cracks

 

Admittedly, both are important (Coaching and Roster).

To go further with your analogy, you could have Richard Petty behind the wheel of a 2001 Nissan Sentra and won’t be winning much of anything.

It was time for Tomlin to move on to the next chapter, but I can’t ignore that there are other big issues with the team.

We don’t have a long term QB, we are sorting out the WR room (some of that is dependent on DK behaving himself), our OLine has been an issue for years, and we still have holes in the secondary (which has also been the case for a while now).

 

All true, but also all under the former tutelage, or lack thereof, of a guy who is now gone.

 

There's a lot of "dead wood" from the Popcorn drafts that needs to be liquidated. Trading Jones and Johnson is a good start.

I was hoping Benton would go with Jones and Johnson, but we signed him a few weeks ago.

 

80% player; 20% coaching