When the Pittsburgh Steelers acquired Donte Jackson, the #2 corner for the Carolina Panthers, in exchange for former Pro Bowl player Diontae Johnson in March, most people thought the deal was OK, erring on the side of poor value for one of the league’s most shrewd teams.
Diontae Johnson has been a solid #2 or #3 option in the league for nearly five years, while not being exactly the talent he was in his breakthrough 2021 Pro Bowl season. While Jackson is a very good cornerback, he has had trouble staying healthy over his six years in the NFL and has never been able to play a full season since his
first year back in 2018.
Some may argue unfairly that Jackson has never been selected to the Pro Bowl or All-Pro teams, and his 64.3 PFF score is respectable but not exceptional.
Thus, the issue arose as to why precisely the Steelers and Panthers made this trade. Particularly in a time when, in spite of the surge of talent from college football, receivers are earning upwards of $35 million, and when every indication suggests that the NFL is primarily an offensive league.
When questioned in late March about the rationale behind dealing one of his best two wideouts, leaving his receiving room relatively shorthanded, Mike Tomlin first responded to this topic in a tactful manner.
“Dude, it was so easy. We have a chance to get [Jackson] by trading player for player. We’ve probably evaluated D-Jack multiple times since he joined the league, including when he was a free agent fresh out of LSU.
We took the action because we needed some support, depth, and good players at that position. We needed D-Jack, and they needed Diontae. The exchange was fruitful.
Though Tomlin contends that Pittsburgh just thought Jackson was a better player, it appears that this may not be the whole story.
Several weeks prior to the trade, reports first surfaced in February indicating that Diontae Johnson was not expected to remain with the team past 2024 due to a potential hold-out over a new contract. This was because Johnson was approaching the end of his two-year, $36.7 million contract, which he signed back in 2022.
But until the deal with the Panthers was disclosed, there was no real anticipation or chatter suggesting the Steelers were actively shopping the former Toledo wideout.
Insider Ray Fittipaldo said that the Pittsburgh Steelers had been thinking about Johnson as a possible problem for a while.
According to Fittipaldo, the AFC North side decided his fate in part because of his lack of maturity, locker room shenanigans, disruptive behavior in general, and low effort. This was reported on Sirius XM NFL Radio Coverage.
He continued to act younger than his years and not necessarily in the best interests of the receivers’ room. You know, it does go back two years, to when it was Antonio Brown before Diontae Johnson. At least Johnson was gone; he was a major problem.
The best defense against making the same mistakes again is certainly understanding the history; if the Steelers have learned anything from the Antonio Brown fiasco, it is to avoid allowing disruptive individuals to grab hold of a club and tear it apart.
