{"id":900083,"date":"2026-05-24T16:00:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900083\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T16:00:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T16:00:47","slug":"steelers-second-year-rb-turning-heads-at-otas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/900083\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers’ second-year RB turning heads at OTAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"USA<\/a><\/p>\n

Andrew Vasquez, Steelers Wire<\/p>\n

Sun, May 24, 2026 at 3:23 PM UTC\"\"<\/p>\n

Steelers’ second-year RB turning heads at OTAs<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> running back Kaleb Johnson<\/a> may have been responsible for one of the biggest rookie blunders<\/a> in NFL history, but he’s apparently ready to turn the page on his 2025 season following a strong performance at OTAs.<\/p>\n

On a new episode of Steel City Insider, Jim Wexell reported that he was wowed by Johnson’s performance at OTAs and believes the young running back made massive improvements heading into Year 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cKaleb Johnson has gotten first-team reps, and he looks like he\u2019s all business,\u201d Wexell said<\/a>. \u201cHe looks like a guy that wants to make amends. \u2026 As a rookie, he couldn’t pick up blitzes. And his pass-catching looks a lot better this year, let me tell you that. Now, what does he know about picking up blitzes now? Probably has been working on it. He’s probably been working on his faults. There’s a guy who’s totally determined \u2014 would not surprise me if he shines in preseason.”<\/p>\n

Johnson, who was selected by the Steelers<\/a> with the 83rd overall pick in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft, failed to make an impact in his rookie season, recording 69 rushing yards on 28 attempts with limited playing time behind Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell.<\/p>\n

Despite his strong showing at OTAs and the departure of Gainwell, Johnson still faces an uphill battle for snaps, as Warren and new Steelers running back Rico Dowdle are expected to control the workload this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

For up-to-date\u00a0Steelers\u00a0coverage, including any offseason moves, follow us on X\u00a0@TheSteelersWire<\/a>\u00a0and give our\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>\u00a0a like.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Steelers Wire: Steelers’ Kaleb Johnson looking impressive at 2026 NFL OTAs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Vasquez, Steelers Wire Sun, May 24, 2026 at 3:23 PM UTC Steelers’ second-year RB turning heads at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,274,6,8405,520,57,2360,8345,426],"class_list":["post-900083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-football","tag-kaleb-johnson","tag-nfl","tag-otas","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-rookie-season","tag-steelers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116630390614375453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900083","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=900083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}