While everybody's talking about Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, Brian Thomas, or some of the big-name rookie wide receivers this year, Roman Wilson is just cruising by and he's ready to go. For the Steelers this year, he could end up becoming one of the most important weapons in that offense. Essentially, Roman Wilson is going to be taking over the Diontae Johnson role in this offense—the guy that really eats up those targets in the intermediate portion of the field while George Pickens and Pat Freiermuth work down the field and to the sidelines, and then of course the run game.
But just take a second to think about the amount of targets that Diontae Johnson has had over the last few years. Now, last season he wasn't among the league leaders—in 11 games he saw 77 targets—but in the previous seasons before that he was always at the top. He was sixth in targets in 2022, he was fifth in targets in 2021, and he was sixth in targets in 2020, his breakout season.
When you take a look at the offensive structure for the Steelers this year with Arthur Smith as the offensive coordinator now, I think we're going to see something more similar to what he ran in Atlanta than what we saw in Tennessee. A lot of people look back to what Arthur Smith did in Tennessee and they're like, "Man, that offense was humming—Derrick Henry, A.J. Brown." But the Steelers don't have Derrick Henry, and the Steelers don't have A.J. Brown. They have good players, but those guys were absolute beasts at their position. George Pickens is not A.J. Brown. He could be good, but he's not going to be A.J. Brown. Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren—they could be good, but they're not going to be Derrick Henry.
So over the last couple of years, when you take a look at the way the offense ran for the Falcons, they really utilized the short and intermediate portions of the field. There's so much information here—I have it all written down again, so let me go through it with you. Last season, Desmond Ridder, when he was the quarterback, had 70 attempts from 0 to 9 yards past the line of scrimmage, 87 from 10 to 19 yards, and 47 of 20-plus yards. Taylor Heinicke was also a guy that played quarterback a little bit last year as well. Same thing—52 of his attempts were 0 to 9 yards past the line of scrimmage, 31 from 10 to 19, and 15 of 20 or more yards down the field.
Last season, they really utilized again 0 to 9 yards and then 10 to 19 yards. In 2022, it was a lot of the same thing. Marcus Mariota had 114 attempts from 0 to 9 yards past the line of scrimmage, 79 attempts from 10 to 19, and 48 attempts of 20-plus yards. Then Desmond Ridder, as a rookie, saw some plays as well—46 attempts from 0 to 9 yards past the line of scrimmage, 30 attempts from 10 to 19, and only 10 attempts of 20 or more yards down the field.
This could absolutely be an offense that does the same exact thing in 2024, and if they do, Roman Wilson is going to be a really big part of it. This is where he excels. He does such a good job of getting in and out of his routes and accelerating away from defenders that he's going to find himself open over the middle of the field quite a bit. If Russell Wilson is continuously looking for him, he's going to pepper him with targets over the middle of the field. Roman Wilson could end up being a guy that in PPR leagues, by the end of the season, is a flex option that we need to be thinking about on a weekly basis. In half-PPR leagues, he may need a little bit more volume and some touchdowns to get to a startable player every single week, but he absolutely could fill in for injuries and bye weeks.
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