Kaleb Johnson

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• 2026 PreviewJul 4, 2026

  Kaleb Johnson 2026 Season Preview — what repeats, what doesn't

  Johnson's 2025 rookie season produced 8.3 half-PPR points across 10 games, an average of 0.8 per game that reflects a back who never secured a consistent role in Pittsburgh's backfield. A season built almost entirely on scarcity of opportunity rather than efficiency offers little in the way of repeatable inputs heading forward.

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  Show notes & transcript

  Kaleb Johnson was a third-round pick a year ago and finished his rookie season as a healthy scratch — 28 carries, 69 yards, a special-teams gaffe that became a highlight for the wrong reasons. And the market still has him at pick two-49, running back 77, because draft capital buys a year of patience. This episode is about a lost rookie year, a rebuilt coaching staff, and a backfield that got more crowded, not less.

  The season: 10 games with a stat line, 28 carries for 69 yards, one catch, no touchdowns. On Half-PPR scoring that is eight-tenths of a point a game — 80-eighth among backs per game, a hundred-sixth in total. There is no way to dress this up: it is one of the quietest rookie lines a third-round back has posted, capped by three weeks as a healthy scratch to close the year. Whatever Pittsburgh saw on draft night, the rookie tape did not show it.

  The career arc is one bad season, so we read it as what it is: a talented college back whose first NFL year went sideways, on and off the field. The draft profile — a downhill one-cut runner with real college production — is the entire reason to care; the pro season actively argues against it.

  The pattern beat has nothing to hold, and that is the point. His touchdown share is zero, so nothing regresses. Aging does not apply in year two. And every forward-looking pattern we trust needs a base of production, which Johnson never gave the league. The library is silent on him, and a draft grade cannot fill that silence — this is a bet on the scout's eye, not the base rates. For a third-round back a near-invisible rookie year is not disqualifying on its own — plenty of runners find their footing in year two — but it does mean the market is buying a projection with nothing underneath it yet.

  The situation got worse for him, not better. Mike Tomlin stepped down and Mike McCarthy took over as head coach, with Brian Angelichio coordinating, per the reporting — a brand-new staff with no attachment to the pick that drafted him. Kenneth Gainwell left in free agency, but Pittsburgh signed Rico Dowdle, a back McCarthy coached in Dallas, who projects as a co-lead alongside Jaylen Warren. So Johnson sits third at best on a depth chart that just added a starter in front of him. McCarthy's public line was a clean-slate, everybody-competes message — encouraging in tone, non-committal in substance. The talent that made him a third-rounder is still in there; the runway to touches got shorter.

  The price: running back 77 at pick two-49. The slot pays about two points a game; he produced eight-tenths. Our verdict: watchlist. The market is paying for the draft capital and a possible year-two turnaround, not for the rookie tape — a defensible dart at a last-round price, but the new staff and the Dowdle signing make the path to volume truly hard to see. The caveat both ways: if Johnson wins back the staff and an injury opens the room, the college profile says there is a runner here worth a free pick — and if Warren and Dowdle split the work as expected, this is a stash you cut by September.

  Watch the camp pecking order behind Warren and Dowdle first, then whether the new staff trusts Johnson with early-down work, then any sign the ball-security and special-teams issues are behind him. The talent bought him a year; the depth chart is spending it. If he's one of your guys, this show exists for your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.