{"id":79133,"date":"2025-05-26T00:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T00:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/79133\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T00:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T00:42:13","slug":"dulac-believes-kaleb-johnson-will-be-steelers-biggest-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/79133\/","title":{"rendered":"Dulac Believes Kaleb Johnson Will Be Steelers’ Biggest Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Kaleb Johnson in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft, and Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette seems to be expecting big things out of the rookie running back. After the draft, Dulac said that Johnson has a \u201cvery good chance\u201d<\/a> of winning the starting running back job by midseason, and during his weekly chat earlier this week, he said that Johnson would be Pittsburgh\u2019s biggest surprise by the end of the year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Johnson excelled in a zone scheme at Iowa, and he\u2019ll be playing for a Steelers team that will run plenty of zone under offensive coordinator Arthur Smith. After the draft, he said that the Steelers had to pivot last year from running as much zone as he would\u2019ve liked, but with someone who\u2019s already familiar with the principles of it in Johnson, Smith can go back to running what he wants.<\/p>\n

Jaylen Warren will get the first crack to win Pittsburgh\u2019s starting job, and it\u2019s expected that he\u2019ll open the season as the starting running back. But Johnson will have plenty of opportunities even with Warren starting, and if he takes advantage of them, he could wind up taking over as Pittsburgh\u2019s starter at some point.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s ability to break off explosive runs was one of his defining traits at Iowa, and his size allows him to run through defenders but he\u2019s smooth enough and has good enough vision to break through holes when they open for him. Even people who aren\u2019t very high on Johnson, like NFL film guru Greg Cosell<\/a>, think he can excel in a zone scheme if the offensive linemen do their job.<\/p>\n

The player and team fit is ideal with Johnson and the Steelers, and it\u2019s not surprising that Dulac thinks he could be someone who surprises. The Steelers lost Najee Harris this offseason and while they also signed Kenneth Gainwell, there\u2019s a lot of production they\u2019re going to need to replace from their backfield. Johnson will need to play a key role in helping the Steelers\u2019 run game exceed what it did last season.<\/p>\n

Dulac\u2019s colleague, Ray Fittipaldo, said that Kaleb Johnson was a standout during rookie minicamp<\/a>, and with on-field OTA work set to begin this week, Johnson\u2019s performance against Pittsburgh\u2019s defense will be worth watching. The Steelers made defending the run a focus this offseason, but it\u2019ll be Johnson\u2019s first reps against non-rookies in a Steelers uniform, and if he stands out, his chances of playing a bigger role early in the season will only increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Kaleb Johnson in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft, and Gerry Dulac…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6600,1736,274,6,520,12744,57,2360,426,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-79133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-gerry-dulac","10":"tag-jaylen-warren","11":"tag-kaleb-johnson","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-post-gazette","15":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","16":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","17":"tag-steelers","18":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114571362281012719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79133","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=79133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}