Steelers A to Z: It came at a price, but DK Metcalf finally provides reliable WR1 play

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 DK METCALF

Experience/age: 7^th season, 27

Contract status: $11 million cap hit in 2025, signed through 2029

The past: At 6 feet 4 and clocked in the 40-yard dash at 4.33 seconds, Metcalf is something of a manchild at wide receiver. Over six NFL seasons he has averaged eight touchdown receptions, 72 catches and more than 1,000 yards receiving per year for the Seattle Seahawks. He’s been even better in the postseason – accumulating five touchdowns and 451 receiving yards on 26 catches in four playoff games. Metcalf has averaged 14.4 yards per reception in the regular season and 17.3 in the playoffs for his career. Metcalf has missed only three of Seattle’s 100 games over the six seasons since he was drafted, he’s been named to the Pro Bowl roster twice and in 2020 was a second-team AP NFL All Pro.

While entering the final season of his contract with Seattle and due $18 million in 2025, Metcalf requested a trade in early March. Four days after that became public, the Steelers agreed to send a second-round draft pick to the Seahawks for Metcalf (the teams also did a swap of late-round picks). The Steelers then signed Metcalf to a five-year, $150 million contract that began immediately. The deal paid Metcalf $35 million this year and was structured in a manner in which the Steelers are not necessarily forced to keep Metcalf through to the end of the pact, which would expire when he is 32 years old.

3️⃣ minutes of @dkm14 highlights ????

More on https://t.co/XL7UQsbZDF pic.twitter.com/PENyDHSUt6

— Pittsburgh Steelers (@steelers) March 25, 2025

2025 outlook: Depending how you define it, the Steelers have cycled through myriad No. 1 and No. 2 wide receivers since trading away then-perennial All Pro Antonio Brown in the spring of 2019. They have drafted the likes of Diontae Johnson, JuJu Smith-Schuster (a holdover), Chase Claypool, George Pickens and Calvin Austin III. They have signed Allen Robinson, Van Jefferson and Robert Woods. They have invested heavily in tight end, too, as an alternative to mitigate the lack of a reliable, high-end WR duo.

With the exception of Austin and Woods (the latter signed this spring), all of the other receivers are gone. Johnson, Claypool and Pickens were traded away. And while the Steelers remain with a hole at WR2, Metcalf is easily the most established and most in-his-prime of any receiver the Steelers have had since Brown. And he better be – the Steelers are paying him far more than they have ever paid anyone at the position. If judged by the value of his extension only (the four years after 2025), Metcalf’s $33 million average annual value makes him the fourth highest-paid wide receiver in the game and the second highest-paid player in Steelers history (nosed just by Ben Roethlisberger’s two-year, $68 million extension agreed to in 2019.

That’s quite a commitment the Steelers have made in Metcalf, particularly for a player who has never been a first-team All Pro or led the NFL in any major statistical category. But it shows just how desperate the Steelers were to finally get an elite wide receiver. Metcalf might not produce like a top-five WR in the NFL – but his consistently good track record suggests the Steelers won’t have to worry about having a legit WR1 any more.