Steelers A to Z: Big WR Lance McCutcheon has shown playmaking ability, has NFL experience

Editor’s note: From now until reporting day to training camp at Saint Vincent College, TribLive is running through the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 90-man roster, looking at each player and assessing his outlook for the 2025 season. The breakdown will run in alphabetical order with at least two players each day between June 12 and July 23. Contract data courtesy spotrac.com.

WR LANCE MCCUTCHEON

Experience/age: 10 regular-season games, 26

Contract status: $960,000 cap hit if he makes the team in 2025, after which would be an exclusive rights free agent

The past: The 6-foot-3, 202-pound McCutcheon is a native of Bozeman, Mont., and he spent four seasons over five years playing at the hometown FCS school, Montana State University. While his production his first three seasons was middling (31 catches for 522 yards and four touchdowns in 37 games), during his 2021 senior season, McCutcheon emerged by posting 61 catches for 1,121 yards and eight touchdowns in Montana State’s run to the FCS national championship game.

McCutcheon made the then-defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams out of training camp and spent his entire rookie season on their 53-man active roster. He appeared in 10 games, playing 56 snaps on offense and 110 on special teams but had no catches on five targets. The following summer, the Rams released McCutcheon at the end of their preseason. He spent time during that ensuing regular season on the practice squads of the Houston Texans and New York Jets. The Jets released him before the start of last season.

(Lance McCutcheon is not related to defensive back Cameron McCutcheon).

Lance McCutcheon leaves 2 defenders in the dust for the Rams touchdown! ????pic.twitter.com/urdOKSiYh6

— NFL on ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsNFL) August 14, 2022

2025 outlook: McCutcheon has shown a playmaking propensity at the NFL level — albeit in the preseason — when he had a two-touchdown game in his preseason debut and finished his first three-game preseason with 15 catches for 159 yards, those two touchdowns and a 2-point conversion catch. That certainly helped McCutcheon make the team as a rookie. But that was now three whole years ago. He hasn’t cracked an active roster since, nor even had a productive preseason stat line.

But the Steelers kept him from an Oct. 14 signing to the practice squad all the way through to the end of this past season and into the spring and summer. The WR5 and WR6 are known as special-teamers — and McCutcheon will have a difficult time unseating the likes of Ben Skowronek in that realm. Of all possible outcomes, the best bet is McCutcheon again is on the practice squad when the season begins.