But the ball glanced off Johnson’s fingertips as Averett dove at his ankles and bounced to the turf as Johnson landed face first in the yellow G of the Pittsburgh painted in the Heinz Field end zone.
Instead, Johnson responded with not one, but two second-half touchdowns in the Steelers’ comeback 20-19 win, cementing Johnson’s status as a No.
“And I think, to me, the bigger thing is the touchdown that would’ve been an amazing catch earlier, the one that he didn’t catch.
He finished the season with 12 drops — four more than any other player in 2020 and twice as many as the next closest Steelers’ pass-catcher.
He’s one of 12 players with at least 100 targets, and he’s tied with the Bills’ Stefon Diggs and Packers’ Davante Adams for the fewest drops among those 12 players.
1,” said Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who’s been on the injured reserve since Oct.
As Johnson glanced back at Balde, the Steelers assistant tossed the wide receiver a football over his right shoulder, twisting it in his hands on the release to add a little spin.
Even before he returned for his third NFL training camp, Johnson, 25, was putting in extra work at his Florida home.
You catch the tennis ball, it’s a smaller surface, so you focus more on a tennis ball.
The tennis ball machine stayed in Florida when he came back to Pittsburgh, but Balde throws him tennis balls before, during and after practice and before games.
“He actually inspired me to do extra work after practice,” safety Minkah Fitzpatrick said.
“I like to see who I’m going up against, who they got,” Johnson said.
So, I knew a lot of times we would run a pick route or something short.
Johnson caught 7 of 8 targets in the second half of the win over the Ravens for 91 yards after catching just 1 of 3 in the first half.
The second touchdown, he runs his route and puts his foot in the ground, and I don’t know too many people that can stop that.
With his speed and improved hands, Johnson is playing his way into either a second contract, rare for a Steelers wide receiver, or a big payday when he hits free agency in 2023.
“He’s becoming a veteran guy, and so it’s reasonable to expect him to get better physically, him to get better intellectually in terms of knowing and understanding the game and utilizing that knowledge for his good,” coach Mike Tomlin said.