Every season we see a few Pittsburgh Steelers step up and make huge positive strides. But at the same time there are always a handful of players who backslide or fail to gain ground. This doesn’t mean they will end up a bust or totally let the team down but here are four guys we expect to take a step back in 2020.
OT Alejandro Villanueva
To be fair, Villanueva hasn’t shown improvement at left tackle in several seasons. He’s been in a holding pattern with flashes of greatness and the same number of lapses. Pittsburgh has two young and very talented tackles on the roster in Chuks Okorafor and Zach Banner so the margin of error for Villanueva this season is small. Villanueva is 31 years old and really doesn’t appear to have anything left in terms of improvement.
RB James Conner
No starter on this team has more talent pushing them than Conner. Benny Snell Jr., Jaylen Samuels and Anthony McFarland Jr. all have the talent and deserve reps. It’s hard to see Conner bring the lead back in 2020 with so many other players and their variety of skills. The Steelers need explosiveness from the run game and given his injury history, I’m not sure how much of that Conner can provide.
LB Bud Dupree
Dupree parlayed one big season into a huge payday last season. His 11.5 sacks in 2019 turned into the franchise tag and one last season to impress the Steelers or some other team in free agency. But we are banking on Dupree looking more like the 2015-2018 version of himself as opposed to building on his breakout year.
TE Vance McDonald
McDonald can’t be excited about the opportunities ahead of him with Eric Ebron on the roster. Of all the players on this list, McDonald is the one guy who the Steelers added a player to directly replace him in the lineup. McDonald looks so good at times but just cannot be counted on to be a consistent weapon in the passing game. McDonald caught 38 passes in 2019 and 50 in 2018 but I expect him to do much worse in 2020.
