{"id":103085,"date":"2025-06-04T10:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/103085\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T10:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T10:29:14","slug":"steelers-te-darnell-washington-makes-massive-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/103085\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers TE Darnell Washington Makes Massive Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington during a game against the New York Jets on Oct. 21, 2024. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington revealed at OTAs on Tuesday that he dropped some weight heading into Year 3. Washington feels like he\u2019s in phenomenal shape. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I dropped about 10 to 15 pounds,\u201d Washington said. \u201cI feel a lot better. I just thought it was something I needed to see happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington was dominate in the run game as a blocker last season. That was his M.O. coming out of Georgia in 2023. Mike Tomlin said during his post-draft press conference that Washington probably had \u2018sixth offensive lineman\u2019 on his license plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith raved about the trajectory<\/a> of Washington in September of last year. Smith loves to utilize tight ends, and that was displayed in Week 2<\/a> against Denver when Washington scored his first career touchdown on fade pattern in the red zone. Justin Fields put the ball right where it needed to be, and Broncos safety P.J. Locke had no chance against the 6-foot-7 Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had a tight end like Darnell with that size and athletic ability,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHe\u2019s such a unique player. He\u2019s had some really dominant blocks. It\u2019s exciting as a coach. The sky is the limit for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shredded weight could help Washington improve his game in the route-running department. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons why I want to start becoming more of a pro \u2014 than I was previous years,\u201d Washington said about dropping weight. \u201cMy first two years, I really wasn\u2019t taking care of my body. I wasn\u2019t like rolling out. I wasn\u2019t getting massages. I would just come in, do the work, leave. Now I\u2019m like \u2014 kind of want to stick around the [Steelers training] facility. Do a little bit more with the quarterback after practice, or do some more recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: Steelers Sights & Sounds: Darnell Washington Shows Two-Way Game, Rookie DL Make Progress<\/a><\/p>\n

Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph has also noticed Washington\u2019s change in stature. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he looks great,\u201d Rudolph said. \u201cHe looks like a different player.\u201d<\/p>\n

After showing signs of improvement in 2024, Year 3 could be a breakout season for the third-year tight end out of Georgia. <\/p>\n

Alan Saunders and Brendan Howe provided reporting from Pittsburgh. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Darnell Washington<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> steelers OTAs<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Darnell Washington during a game against the New York Jets on Oct.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[457,7,6,520,57,2360,426,2395,23526],"class_list":{"0":"post-103085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-darnell-washington","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers","15":"tag-steelers-news","16":"tag-steelers-otas"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114624630996982317","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}