JuJu wants to play outside receiver this season

It will be a less chance of him getting clocked, therefore I'm down with that.

 

If this is true, this could b bad. He has proven that he’s not fast enough to b an outside guy. Could be a season of discontent. Combine this kind of stuff with our brutal schedule and I think Tomlin can kiss his overrated streak of non-losing seasons goodbye.

 

nobody is a burner besides claypool. johnson is quick which is his plus. washington and juju are strong. ray ray is quick as well with a mix of speed. it's a nice mix and it's all about matchups as we have read in canada's offense. throw in ebron and friermuth and najee and we have some weapons for defenses to deal with, coming from all over the place.

 

Why is he still taking questions about FA next year and his contract? He'd play for the Ravens if the money is right? He still needs to play them at least twice. Smart players say they aren't talking about that until next year. Yet, here he is still talking about it and cracking jokes. I can see this nonsense trickling into the regular season and ruining our season.

Maybe

 

Why is he taking questions about FA next year and his contract? Because it's the reality of the situation. Juju took a logical step in an attempt to position himself for a better financial situation. That's ok. Some teams took the exact same approach to the COVID salary capp situation. Tha's ok too.

 

Like Mac and others have stated, the WRs will be interchangeable in the new offense. I think moving them around from the outside to slot and vice versa will be good for keeping the defense on their toes. If the communication is right between QB and WR, this should be a good thing.

JuJu wanting more reps on the outside should be what you want to see. He'll be motivated to excel there. He was a great contested catch guy at USC and he broke some long TD runs here his rookie year. The forgotten thing here is that if JuJu and Claypool are on the outside that means DJ18 or Ray Ray are in the slot, that's a pretty dang good matchup too.

 

Sounds like a good plan to me. The coaches will attempt to put the players in best formations and positions to win games.

Some people just look for reasons to be overly critical of players.

 

Exactly, so he's going to spend this whole season thinking about the next. He might think twice about making that catch over the middle or falling on that fumble. Exactly why you let those players go. I would have rather given James Washington, Juju's spot this year.

 

There is no exactly. Professionals can go out and do their jobs regardless of different factors that play a role in their lives.

When players are out there performing they may or may not make business decisions. I'm sure you made a few business decisions regarding your life. After all, people are humans.

Sometimes making a business over the possibility of injury is better for the team. Teams make business decisions all the time.

 

This is it. If the rook TE shows promise, and the running game starts to develop in pre-season, and some team has a WO 1or 2 injured during pre-season, I think the smart move is to move a WO for a depth player. Too many mouths to feed on offense with Johnson, Claypool, Juju, Washington, Ebron, Friermuth, Ray Ray and possibly Harris as a receiving threat.

 

He signed back with the Steelers ultimately to as he had the chance as a number 1 receiver to pad the stats for big payday.

Ultimately he even admits he didn't get what he felt he deserved for his first FA break.

So it's safe to say it's all really about him as he knows the Steelers aren't paying him what he thinks he's worth which must be more than 9 mill/yr

 

Unfortunately Ben can no longer hit passes more than 15 yards downfield with any type of regularity so JuJu is better off in the slot.

If he’s looking to get better stats for free agency counting on 40 year old Ben combined with his speed and going against number 1 corners isn’t the way to do it.

 

I hope they do put him outside as Ray Ray is much better in space and has better RAC ability .. If the other WR'S can force the coverage away from Juju then he could get a lot of 10 yard back shoulder fades ..He does have a wide body and strong hands so that would help him body guys out and make strong hand catches ..

 

Ray-Ray had 20 catches last year, this year they added Najee and Freiermuth, Claypool a year older. Gonna play more 12 personnel along with their base 11, I just don't see where he's going to see the field much. JuJu, DJ, and Claypool are the three top weapons at WR, JDubs is a clearcut #4.

 

Ray Ray needs to stick to special teams, they have their top 4 receivers who can do much more than Ray Ray.

 

What if the Steelers have a injury at the WR position, they need to keep their top 4 guys.

 

That may not be a great idea. Smith-Schuster is good in the slot, and if bouncing outside JuJu playing outside will take away snaps from Claypool, and Diontae that doesn't sound like a good thing. Yet this is what Smith-Schuster wants because clearly teams in free agency were turned off by his low yards -per- catch average. Which is partially why he had to come back to Pittsburgh on a one year deal. "If you want to win football games, you put him in the slot. Because that's what he's best at," Madden said. "But it isn't going to get him the big money. And don't he know it! Because it didn't. per Trib Live
Maybe the solution is let JuJu play outside on 1st and 2nd downs, but on 3rd downs put him in the slot where he can be that security blanket for Ben, like he was last season.

 

I think we see more of him this season I think the new OC will employ a lot of packages and a lot of different looks .. The new OC might even package like skills together to run certain plays? Like Ebron,Claypool, RayRay or DJ and run that smoke screen using the 2 big guys as blockers..Or go Ace twins with Clapool and JuJu as the outside guys to press the sidelines and DJ and Ray Ray as your inside guys lots of crossing,drags, and slant looks with speedy shifty guys...Or if you want to force single coverage go 3 by 1 with DJ,Ray Ray , always on the inside bunch and you can switch Juju and Chase as the 3rd. the other being the 1 WR opposite of the 3 by 1 this will almost always force single coverage because of the speed of DJ and Ray Ray ..

My point is a good OC with vision and good Football IQ will use a player with open field ability as part of the game plan.. I think Ray Ray gets 60 touches or so on the season ...

 

I disagree if the plays are designed better Ray Ray is the most elusive of the group..Him and DJ have that short area speed and elusiveness the others don't .. The best our old OC could do was gimmick plays that were on a 1st. grade level I expect much better this season..

 

What can Ray-Ray do that DJ cannot? The goal is to be able to run multiple different plays from the same personnel groupings and formations, you're not going to be doing wholesale changes every play, otherwise you become predictable based on said groupings.

They're going to pass less than last year, Claypool will get a bigger share of targets this year, Freiermuth and Najee's mouths are at the table now, too.

I think Ray-Ray might be delegated to special teams.

 

Will he also get a flashing red light on his helmet when he runs onto the field for his plays, the way Rainey and Archer did?

 

Ray Ray and DJ are about the same to me slight edge to Ray Ray as a open field runner .. As far as making wholesale changes that's exatly how you create mismatches.. Of course you need multiple plays form any set that you use and when 1 play looks like another and the D guesses wrong that's exactly when big plays occur..1 simple example smoke screen fake wheel route..The DB gets tired of being block so he forces the action and now your WR is running down the sideline..Off that same look you can cross block it up front and run arrow in or arrow out from the blockers..I have a playbook somewhere that we had like 10 different pass plays off that 1 smoke screen and 4 or 5 different running plays..

 

D can substitute, too, when we make changes.

The way teams create mismatches is being able to run or pass out of any personnel grouping. That's how they get WRs on Robert Spillane and Vince Williams.