On Thursday Night Football, Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson ended a frustrating and miserable drought of touchdown passes when he finally caught a pass by fourth quarter Kenny Pickett (who we should really start referring to as an entirely different Pickett).
Johnson had went the entire 2022 season without scoring a touchdown, and had waited over a full calendar year between then and now.
Johnson had not caught a touchdown pass since Ben Roethlisberger threw him one on January 16th, 2022 in the playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs. That touchdown, unfortunately, wasn’t of much significance, bringing a 35-7 deficit to Kansas City to a 35-14 score.
However we’re talking strictly the regular season, that drought extends two more weeks to January 3rd, 2022 against the Cleveland Browns. In that game, his touchdown served a much more pivotal role, as the Steelers fought tooth and nail to try and scrape in to the 2021 playoffs, where they met the Chiefs.
Johnson’s TD-less 2022 campaign was well chronicled, as he led the Steelers in receptions (86), receiving yards (882), and by far in targets (147). No other Steelers player had 100+ targets that year.
And yet, no matter how hard he tried, Johnson could not find the endzone…at least in the form of a touchdown. Almost cruelly, Johnson caught multiple two point conversions, once against the New England Patriots and another against the Cleveland Browns in the final game of the season.
In that Browns game, Johnson got ever so close to a touchdown, but was tackled on the one yard line and held out of the endzone. He had several other almost-catches as well, including this one against the New York Jets:
This was one of Mitch Trubisky’s last throws before he lost the starting job in Pittsburgh. If you remember, Mike Tomlin benched Trubisky in favor of Kenny Pickett at halftime with the Steelers down 10-6.
If Johnson’s foot comes down mere inches away from where it did, however, that’s a touchdown catch, and there’s a realistic argument that Trubisky plays the rest of that game with the Steelers tied 10-10 instead. If so, that snowballs into an entire hypothetical argument about how much longer Trubisky would have lasted as the starter instead.
However, Johnson was denied from the endzone, and that would be a recurring theme for him over the next year and change before finally believing the biggest sigh of relief on Thursday against the Tennessee Titans.
This was his second big catch of that very drive. Johnson caught a key third down pass (on an absolute dime of a pass by Pickett) to keep the drive alive. And unlike so many previous times before, Johnson gets rewarded with the touchdown.
Johnson’s stat line between his last touchdown catch and this one is absolutely bonkers:
-655 days
-21 games
-1,184 receiving yards
-109 receptions
-182 targets
-61 first down catches
It’s been a looooong time coming. How could you not be happy for the guy?
(Featured photo by Matt Freed/AP)
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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