{"id":311832,"date":"2025-08-23T18:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/311832\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T18:33:10","slug":"steelers-get-critical-offensive-weapon-back-at-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/311832\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Get Critical Offensive Weapon Back at Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers tight end Jonnu Smith at training camp on Aug. 3, 2025. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PITTSBURGH \u2014 Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Jonnu Smith returned to practice on Saturday after missing the team\u2019s entire preseason with what head coach Mike Tomlin described as knee soreness.<\/p>\n

Smith was one of a number of offensive veterans that did not play at all in the preseason, including starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers<\/a>, wide receiver DK Metcalf and left guard Isaac Seumalo.<\/p>\n

While Smith was technically dealing with an injury, the team was mostly just being cautious with the 30-year-old tight end, who general manager Omar Khan acquired in a blockbuster trade with the Miami Dolphins earlier this offseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s what you wanna call it,\u201d Smith said about the knee soreness that\u2019s kept him out. \u201cWe play football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith rejoined most of the rest of the first-team offense at practice on Saturday, a group that appears to be rounding into near-full health ahead of Week 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels good, man, getting back into the flow and the rhythm of things. I understand time is of the essence,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Smith is a key to what the Steelers plan to do on offense in 2025. With a thin group of wide receivers, offensive coordinator Arthur Smith will deploy tight ends Smith, Pat Freiermuth and Darnell Washington as a big part of the offense in an effort to find tactical wins without overwhelming talent behind Metcalf in the team\u2019s group of wide receivers.<\/p>\n

\u201c[I\u2019m] extremely excited,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThis is a very talented offense, man. We\u2019ve got a lot of different, unique skillsets at each position. We\u2019ve got a lot of advantages \u2026 and it\u2019s up to us to bring it to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Jonnu Smith<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers Injury Updates<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers Injury Updates Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Jonnu Smith at training camp on Aug. 3, 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,7470,6,520,57,2360,426,47390],"class_list":{"0":"post-311832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jonnu-smith","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers","15":"tag-steelers-injury-updates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115079518944320540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311832","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=311832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}