ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Mike Tomlin made good on his threat to replace players who kept dropping passes.
Even if he stuck to it for only about 25 minutes of game time.
After failing to corral passes thrown to him on third downs that ended the first two Pittsburgh Steelers possessions of Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills, Diontae Johnson did not play the remainder of the first half.
The apparent decision from Tomlin came five days after he answered a question about a recent epidemic of drops by his receivers by saying, “They can catch the ball or they can get replaced by those who will catch it.”
Over the final seven Steelers drives of the first half of Sunday’s 26-15 loss, Johnson wasn’t so much replaced as it was the Steelers went with skill-position packages that included some combination of receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chase Claypool, James Washington and Ray-Ray McCloud in addition to running backs and/or tight ends.
“As a receiver, when someone’s down like that … it’s tough, but at the same time you have to see he has to come back,” Smith-Schuster said.
Johnson ran out for the first offensive snap of the second half. He was not thrown a pass during the Steelers’ first two possessions, but he caught all three of his targets during their lone second-half scoring drive, totaling 28 yards with them.
“We kept him uplifted,” Smith-Schuster said, “and you saw in the second half he made a couple plays for us on the drive we scored. He just stayed positive and kept it going.”
Johnson had at least three drops during last week’s loss to Washington. According to Pro Football Focus, he had an NFL-most 10 drops entering this weekend’s games.
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