After shaky debut, Steelers rookie RB Kaleb Johnson vows to be better in 2nd preseason game

Kaleb Johnson wanted to make a good first impression for his new team. It didn’t quite work out that way for the former Iowa running back in his Pittsburgh Steelers preseason debut.

Held to 20 yards on eight carries, Johnson promises improvement in his encore Saturday night when the Steelers play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Acrisure Stadium.

“Just show them a more comfortable me,” Johnson said Thursday after a joint practice with the Buccaneers. “Being out there last time, I was getting my feet wet and getting used to a new atmosphere. It should be better.”

With Jaylen Warren sitting out the season opener as a healthy scratch, Johnson got the start and played into the second half as he logged 24 snaps. But he averaged just 2.5 yards per carry, dropped a pass and was stopped for no gain on a fourth-and-1 run in the third quarter.

“Little details matter,” Johnson said when asked what he learned from the opener. “Every little detail matters. If you mess up on a detail, it can mess up the whole game and can throw you off.”

One concern coach Mike Tomlin had about the team’s third-round draft pick was he thought Johnson was trying to evaluate his play while the game against the Jacksonville Jaguars was still being played, or as he said, “while you’re living it.”

Johnson didn’t disagree with that assessment.

“When I was at Iowa, I was always hard on myself,” he said. “I wanted to be perfect and help my team win and do everything I could. When I messed up, I was hard on myself. (Tomlin) told me that in the NFL you can’t do that. Everybody messes up. It’s the NFL. Everybody is good. You’re going to mess up a play. It’s big getting over it and moving on.”

Disappointment was a foreign concept for Johnson late in his college career. In 2024, he led the Hawkeyes and finished seventh nationally with 1,537 rushing yards. He averaged 6.4 yards per carry, and his 21 touchdowns ranked sixth in the country.

Assistant general manager Andy Weidl, at a media availability Thursday, discussed the traits that attracted the Steelers to Johnson as one of the replacements for departed running back Najee Harris.

“His ability, his vision, his instincts, his ability to run into loaded box and find a crease, explosive plays, his ability to break tackles,” Weidl said. “The power he ran with, the longer the game went, the stronger he got. There is a lot of horsepower in his lower body.”

Steelers assistant general manage Andy Weidl on rookie running back Kaleb Johnson pic.twitter.com/wuPVzcmeUb

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) August 14, 2025

Weidl added that Johnson is a fit for the outsize zone running scheme offensive coordinator Arthur Smith likes to use. Weidl didn’t see anything in the preseason opener to change his opinion of Johnson.

“You’re seeing growth,” Weidl said. “We expect growth from him from last week to this week. There was a starting point last week, first game. There are good things to build on. That’s a realistic expectation with Kaleb.”

To be fair to Johnson, he had limited work running behind the first-team offensive line, which played just 15 snaps over two possessions. On the first drive, Mason Rudolph attempted seven passes, and Johnson carried twice for 5 yards.

On the second drive, Johnson broke off a 7-yard run before he dropped a pass on second-and-20. That drive stalled after just one first down.

Tomlin said the Steelers may flip the script this week and call for more running plays so they can give Johnson a bigger sample size while the rest of the first team is on the field.

“Our agenda may change,” Tomlin said. “I lot of it had to do with who (Jacksonville) played and the schematics they deployed.”

More importantly, Tomlin wants to see a more relaxed Johnson on the field against Tampa Bay.

“I just want to see him trust himself more,” he said. “I want to see him play more instinctively, trust his talents. That’s reasonable to expect between the first experience and the second experience.”