Steelers' Mike Tomlin threatens benchings if receivers' drops continue

Dropped passes can be a subjective metric to calculate in the NFL.

What one stat-tracking website views as a drop could be considered an uncatchable pass by other services. ESPN Stats and Info, for instance, calculates the Pittsburgh Steelers with an NFL-high 31 drops this season, 10 more than any other team.

Pro Football Reference, on the other hand, counts 27 drops for the Steelers, with three teams accumulating more. Pro Football Focus, meanwhile, credits the Steelers with 28 drops.

Whatever the true number, it’s too high for coach Mike Tomlin’s liking.

One day after watching his players drop an estimated seven passes in a 23-17 defeat to Washington — the first loss in 12 games for the Steelers — Tomlin delivered an ultimatum to those on the receiving end of Ben Roethlisberger’s throws.

“They can catch the ball, or they can get replaced by those who will catch it,” Tomlin said Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “It’s as simple as that.”

A review of the game tape showed second-year receiver Diontae Johnson and tight end Eric Ebron were responsible for three drops apiece. The normally sure-handed JuJu Smith-Schuster was responsible for the other.

If the performance were an aberration, perhaps Tomlin would be more accepting. But given it came five days after the Steelers had at least a half-dozen drops in a 19-14 victory against the Baltimore Ravens, it was too much for Tomlin to bear.

With a game Sunday night at Buffalo looming, the Steelers don’t have much time to eradicate the problem.

Two of Ebron’s drops were on perfectly thrown passes in the middle of the field. The third came on a contested catch in the end zone. Johnson’s drops came on short throws from Roethlisberger when he appeared to be concentrating on running with the ball before actually catching it.

“I don’t think there’s anything to work on,” said wide receiver James Washington, who had two catches for 80 yards, including a 50-yard touchdown that gave the Steelers a 14-0 lead in the second quarter. “We just have to focus. I feel like a lot of us are kind of thinking about the next move instead of just catching the ball first. That starts with the person. I know the group of guys we have will focus in on it.”

They better, Tomlin said, or they’ll risk being sent to the bench.

“As I’ve often said, I expect guys to make routine plays routinely,” he said. “When there is a pattern of that not happening, we’ve got to look at who we’re throwing the ball to.”

Johnson leads the NFL with 10 drops, according to Pro Football Focus. Ebron has six, with Washington, Smith-Schuster and running back James Conner having three apiece.

Johnson leads the Steelers with 654 receiving yards and is second with 65 catches despite missing nearly two full games because of injuries. Despite the drops, he led the Steelers with eight catches for 71 yards against Washington and recorded his fifth touchdown reception.

Ebron was the second-most targeted player against Washington, finishing with seven catches for 68 yards. After a slow start, he has 49 catches for 481 yards and four touchdowns on the season.

Given how often the Steelers use three-receiver and four-receiver sets, frequently with Ebron also on the field, it could be difficult for Tomlin to sit one of his team’s top pass catchers.

Washington was the odd-man out in the four-receiver, one-tight end formation that was so successful in November, but his playing time topped 50% of the offensive snaps Monday for the first time in seven games. Rookie Chase Claypool, whose eight touchdown catches are most on the team, saw his least activity since the second week of the season, and Ray-Ray McCloud has logged just nine snaps over the past two games.

The Steelers’ top four receivers are either second- or third-round draft picks, and Ebron is a former first-rounder, meaning they showed a flair for catching the football in college that made them enticing draft targets.

“The coaching of catching the football with those that are employed to do so at this level is not something I’ve got a lot of patience for,” Tomlin said. “It’s not something any of us have a lot of patience for. Those guys’ jobs are to catch the football, particularly the routine ones. Where there is a pattern, you should expect to see less opportunities. That’s just fair. That’s just part of what this business and our game is all about.”