Friday PM Update: Johnson logged a full participation in practice on Friday. He is off the injury report and should play on Sunday.
Thursday update: Johnson was able to practice in full on Thursday and should be ready to go against the Buccaneers on Sunday.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are having a tough season. They have a rookie under center with Kenny Pickett and have another tough matchup this week. They will welcome the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to town this weekend and are pretty banged up. Wide receiver Diontae Johnson is dealing with a hip injury. He wasn’t concerned about it or Sunday, but he makes the injury report nonetheless.
Long injury report for the Steelers today, but most everyone was named by Tomlin in his Tuesday run down of injuries.
— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) October 12, 2022
WR Diontae Johnson didn’t finish practice today with a hip injury, but he told me he’s fine and he just took a knee to the hip. No long-term concerns. pic.twitter.com/YA2pBh99Qk
Fantasy football implications
Johnson already saw some targets taper off in Pickett’s first career start last week. He still has weekly upside in an offense that is clearly going to have to pass a lot to stay in games. If he is active and registers a full practice by the end of the week, you should still start him in this game.
If Johnson sits, the next man up will be Pickens. You could argue that the Steelers already have a new number one with how much Pickett has targeted Pickens through a game and a half as the quarterback. He would be the likely candidate to see more targets in Johnson’s absence, with Chase Claypool also seeing a boost in the offense.