The Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell sagas have finally run their course, and the result leaves a ton of production up for grabs in Pittsburgh’s offense. The most exciting result could be the emergence of JuJu Smith-Schuster as one of the most productive receivers in football. He’s already coming off a huge second season in which he upped his numbers across the board and actually tallied 7 more catches and over 100 more yards than Brown. Already a top-10 fantasy wideout in 2018, JuJu is now up to WR6 on The Wolf’s Big Board and could even be a first round pick for 2019.
AB only missed 3 games over his last 2 seasons in Pittsburgh, so we have a limited sample size of what Smith-Schuster can do as the #1 option. But his numbers in those games still show a ton of promise.
Week 17 2018: 5 catches, 37 yards, 1 TD
Week 17 2017: 9 catches, 143 yards, 1 TD
Week 16 2017: 6 catches, 75 yards, 1 TD
Even with Brown putting up his usual gaudy numbers, JuJu was top-10 in targets, receptions, yards, and YAC. Now that Brown’s 168 targets are available and the Steelers haven’t done much to replace his production — no offense to Donte Moncrief or Eli Rogers — JuJu may be ready to put himself in the upper echelon of NFL receivers at just 22 years old. At the very least, he thinks he’s ready.
