A week ago we relayed the report that Steelers coaches were raving about Kaleb Johnson's special teams work and read it as a year-two back quietly securing a game-day jersey. Three days later, Steelers Depot's preseason grades said he "doesn't appear to be in the picture" at running back. In our takeaways column we wrote that both reports could not stay true for long. On reflection, that was wrong. They can both be true indefinitely, and the fact that they are is the whole answer to the question in the headline.
Start where his rookie year ended
The play that defined Johnson's 2025 happened in Week 2 against Seattle, on a kick return, when a ball he let go became a Seahawks touchdown. Depot called it the beginning of the end of his rookie season, and the numbers agree. His final line: ten games, 28 carries, 69 yards, 2.5 per carry, one catch, not a single run longer than nine yards. Fifty-one offensive snaps all season, with a success rate around 25 percent. The Post-Gazette's year-two preview headline said it plainly: he never found his footing as a rookie.
So what is wrong with Kaleb Johnson? Nothing mysterious, and that is the uncomfortable part. There is no injury to recover from, no scheme change to blame, no coach who buried him unfairly. There is a specific, well-documented skills gap, and a roster that no longer has room for players who carry one.
The three-job problem
Mike DeFabo's camp assessment is the clearest scouting report anyone has published: he is not creating beyond what is blocked, and he is not a natural catcher. He dropped a ball Saturday night shortly after telling reporters he had not dropped one all camp. In McCarthy's offense, a running back holds three jobs: run with vision, catch without adventure, and protect the quarterback. Johnson currently offers one of the three on his good days, and the two ahead of him, Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle, offer all three. Behind him, Travis Homer is a career special teams standout, Lew Nichols just ran through a defender for the opener's first touchdown, and seventh-round rookie Eli Heidenreich out-carried him in the same game.
That is why the coaches raving about his special teams is not a contradiction of the bad news. It is the shape of it. When the only compliments a former featured-back prospect earns are on coverage units, the staff has told you which meetings still have a chair for him. The offense is closed. The conversation happening now is whether he is one of the best 46 special teamers on Sundays, and the kick return room he is auditioning in has Wetjen holding one job and four players fighting for the other. The redemption arc runs directly through the play that broke him.
The case for patience, honestly stated
Troy Fautanu says Johnson has grown a lot and looks super locked in, and Johnson himself has been working the exact weaknesses on the list, pass protection and hands. Teammate praise in August is cheap, but it is not nothing, and neither is this: he is entering year two, the year the light most often comes on for backs, and vision behind an NFL line is a learnable skill in a way that speed is not. The tools that made him a day-two evaluation did not evaporate in fifty-one snaps.
But roster math does not pay for tools in year two. It pays for jobs. And the honest ledger says Johnson currently holds zero jobs outright on a six-back depth chart that will keep three, maybe four.
Our call, so we can be graded
Johnson makes this roster only if he wins the second return job, and Friday night against the Jets is effectively the audition. Here is the tell: if he fields the opening kickoff and gets double-digit offensive touches, the staff is still invested and the special teams praise was real currency. If the returns go to Hurleman or Heidenreich and his touches stay ornamental, cutdown day gets very uncomfortable, and a practice-squad year becomes the good outcome. We put his odds of surviving to the 53 at no better than even, which would have sounded absurd for this player twelve months ago.
What is wrong with Kaleb Johnson is that nothing dramatic is wrong, and the NFL's margins do not require drama. A ball he let hit the ground in September took his rookie year, and the only way back is to catch the next one clean, in every sense. Friday we find out if the staff still wants to hand it to him.
