Joe Starkey: Steelers might soon regret passing on affordable receiver Jakobi Meyers

Joe Starkey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov 6, 2025

Published in Football

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PITTSBURGH — Listen, if the defense keeps playing like it did against the Indianpolis Colts, the Pittsburgh Steelers won’t need Jakobi Meyers or anyone else. They won’t even need an offense. They can just trot out Chris Boswell after each forced turnover.

But what if the still 30th-ranked defense reverts to form — or, more likely, falls somewhere between the spectacular performance against the Colts and the historically inept ones against the Bengals and Packers?

The price for Meyers was slightly higher than expected, but hardly exorbitant. The potential reward was great. I’m baffled.

Why didn’t the Steelers outbid the Jacksonville Jaguars and add a reliable, versatile veteran who cracked the thousand-yard mark with the Las Vegas Raiders last season despite the absence of a real quarterback, did not drop a pass all year and surely would have meshed with Aaron Rodgers?

Jacksonville got Meyers — who for now is a rental player — for fourth- and sixth-round picks, which means it’s reasonable to assume he could have been had for a fourth and a fifth.

I get all the arguments against it. I believe they go something like this:

— This tight end-happy offense doesn’t incorporate many receiver-heavy formations. Where would Meyers have fit?

— The cost was too high for a rental player at a time the Steelers are stockpiling resources to chase a quarterback in the next draft or two.

— Offense hasn’t been the problem here.

Let’s address those one at a time:

— Maybe the offense doesn’t incorporate more receiver-heavy formations because it’s still a receiver short. And even if Meyers might have receded some weeks, there likely would have come a time when the presence of a dependable weapon, especially on the boundary (Meyers plays outside and inside) could have helped them win a big game.

Shoot, even Mike Williams helped them win a game.

— The Steelers have a thousand picks next year (actually as many as 12). I think they’d survive and still be able to chase a quarterback if they dealt away a fourth and a fifth.

— The offense has been more consistent than the defense, but let’s not pretend we’re looking at the ’07 New England Patriots here. The Steelers rank 28th in total offense and 13th in scoring — the latter figure aided greatly by all the turnovers the defense has created.

However, if you believe offense is the strength of the team through half the season, why not reinforce it by giving Aaron Rodgers another weapon? Why not add some DK Metcalf insurance while you’re at it?

The Steelers are likely to see Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, Jared Goff, Joe Flacco (oh no!) and Lamar Jackson twice across their final nine games. They will see only very good quarterbacks in the playoffs, should they qualify. At some point, they’re going to need to outscore somebody.

Ex-NFL player Bucky Brooks, writing for NFL.com, once labeled Meyers a “savvy pass-catcher with the IQ, awareness and instincts to thrive as a complementary pass-catcher in a versatile, ball-controlled passing game.”

That is not the way most would describe recent Steelers addition Marquez Valdes-Scantling, although he does have a history with Rodgers and provides a potential deep threat.

For now, as Tomlin put it, MVS is “just a practice-squader,” and Tomlin had little interest in discussing the practice squad at his Tuesday news conference.

Meyers isn’t going to blow the top off a defense. The big move there would have been Rashid Shaheed, a rental player who went from New Orleans to Seattle for fourth- and fifth-round picks.

Like Meyers, Shaheed has thrived despite shaky quarterbacking over his four-year career. He is a player defenses must respect, as evidenced when he reached nearly 22 mph on an 87-yard touchdown against the Giants in Week 5.

As a bonus, Shaheed was a first-team All-Pro return man two years ago.

The AFC is wide open. There is no great team. If the season ended today, the Kansas City Chiefs would be home watching. There have been other years — all of them lately — where it’s impossible to picture the Steelers beating a top team in a playoff game. This is not one of those years. They are in the mix. They have a shot.

They could have enhanced it Tuesday.

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