The Steelers Trifecta: Simmons, Sloman, and Smith-Schuster

Day 25 of the Steelers Trifecta! Featuring Tyler Simmons, Sam Sloman, and JuJu Smith-Schuster

Welcome to the Steelers Trifecta! Over the 30 days leading up to the Pittsburgh Steelers 2021 training camp, we will be highlighting three players every day in order cover the entire 90-man offseason roster. So without further ado, here are today’s three players:

Tyler Simmons

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Position: Wide Receiver
Age: 23
Year: 1
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 201
Drafted: UDFA 2021
College: Georgia
Roster Outlook: Unlikely
Analysis:

An ongoing theme of this process is the state of being a wide receiver who is not one of the top-5 guys already on this roster. The chance of any of these guys making this team is pretty much 0% and reliant on an injury. But there will be spots available spots on the practice roster. All these guys, including Simmons, have a decent amount of size on them, and these jobs will basically come down to who is the most skilled. Could Simmons be that guy? Sure. But we won’t know until we see them in pads in July.

Sam Sloman

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Position: Kicker
Age: 23
Year: 2
Height: 5’8”
Weight: 205
Drafted: Round 7, Pick 248, 2020 (Rams)
College: Miami (Ohio)
Roster Outlook: Very Unlikely
Analysis:

Let’s be honest with ourselves here, Sam Sloman was brought in to take the pressure off Chris Boswell from taking every field goal at training camp and the preseason. Sloman will also be interviewing to be the ‘in case of injury’ guy, should anything happen to Boswell throughout the season. I really don’t expect much from any backup kicker to Chris Boswell ever since he bounced back to become one of the most accurate kickers in the game the past few seasons.

JuJu Smith-Schuster

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Position: Wide Receiver
Age: 24
Year: 5
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 215
Drafted: Round 2, Pick 62, 2017
College: Southern California
Roster Outlook: Lock
Analysis:

The question marks surrounding Smith-Schuster really come down to whether he’ll just have another average receiver season, or bounce back to his 2018 form where he surpassed 1,400 receiving yards. He is the most experienced receiver on the roster and the other guys really look up to JuJu. In another contract year, Smith-Schuster will have to pull out all the stops if he really wants to be paid like a top receiver in the game.

Be sure to check back everyday for anther ‘trifecta’ of Steelers, and as we go along click back on previous articles listed below so you don’t miss a thing.