Playing WR ‘butterfly effect’ game isn’t getting the answers Steelers fans want

If we are going to play the “butterfly effect” game with the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers, let’s at least talk about the right butterfly.

While addressing Steelers media members Tuesday, general manager Omar Khan was asked how he evaluated the midseason trades for Mike Williams and Preston Smith and if he envisioned bigger roles for each of those players than they ended up getting.

“I think both those guys helped us,” Khan said. “If I had to do it again, I would do it again. But at the end of the day, the result was that we lost five straight games, and that’s not good enough.”

My guess is if Khan could be completely transparent, he would’ve added, “But, yes. I thought they’d be used more.”

Personally, I thought Smith would’ve at least dressed against Baltimore in the playoffs and that Williams would’ve gotten more playing time and targets. I bet Khan feels the same, whether he says so out loud or not.

Honestly, though, I don’t see much need to reassess those moves or for Khan to have to feel defensive about them. Smith was a role-player, and Williams was about the fourth or fifth name on the list of potential Steelers targets to acquire at wide receiver after the Brandon Aiyuk pursuit fell through. He was their last option.

Well, let me rephrase that. Technically, Williams was one of their first options when they tried to sign him in free agency before the New York Jets inked him to a deal. Frankly, Khan may have had to carry more responsibility for that move if Williams had signed a contract of any significant value in March, given how he underperformed here and in New York. The 30-year-old totaled just 21 catches in 18 games between the clubs for a pedestrian 298 yards and one touchdown.

If we really want to go back in time and adjust the course of history, we should be asking about why the Aiyuk deal didn’t get done. Or one for Davante Adams. Or Cooper Kupp. Or Courtland Sutton.

Or why didn’t the Steelers tell Jacksonville to scratch Christian Kirk so he wouldn’t get hurt against Green Bay as the teams were allegedly on the verge of getting a trade finalized? Perhaps he would’ve been a more impactful addition than Williams.

Now the Jaguars are saying they don’t even have plans to trade him at the start of this year, given that he has recovered from his collarbone injury.

You know what? Forget all that. Let’s go back even further in time to the Donte Jackson-Dionate Johnson trade 11 months ago. That’s what opened up the hole at No. 2 receiver in the first place. Given the travails of Johnson through Carolina, Baltimore and Houston this past year, I don’t think anyone is second-guessing Khan and Mike Tomlin’s decision to ship Johnson out of town — even though Jackson did get injured and faded late in the season.

Apparently, Johnson’s attitude was so bad that the Steelers absolutely had to get rid of him. As did the Panthers, Ravens and Texans.

But shouldn’t Khan have done so with some type of replacement locked up? Weren’t they a little reckless to just presume a starting-worthy receiver was going to fall into their laps via free agency or trade circles?

Failing those options, with all the other first-and-second-round needs they had, wasn’t it a little cavalier to assume that Wide Receiver X (who turned out to be nothing more than Roman Wilson) would just jump right in and contribute out of the draft?

After a few years of waiting, the offense ended up finally getting contributions from Calvin Austin, yet the receiver room still wasn’t good enough beyond George Pickens.

At least Khan was eventually asked about whether fanning on Aiyuk in August set the team back at all. Whether he gave a sufficient answer or not is up to you to decide.

“Obviously, that became a very public process. He made a deal with San Francisco. I’m always going to look at everything, and if I feel like it’s going to help us, we’ll take a shot. If not, we’ll move on,” Khan said.

Well, yeah. It became public in part because Tomlin was joking about it in very thinly veiled references on WDVE when fans and media were assuming the deal was about to get done. That made it quite public indeed.

Again, though, Khan’s desire to explore ways of making the roster better isn’t in question. His ability to actually do so — especially at wide receiver— most certainly is.

That’s what I’m going to be evaluating from here on out. Not a pair of trades that had minimal effect on the outcome of the Steelers’ late-season collapse a year ago.