Moderatoren » The Pittsburgh Steelers expect third-round picks

Diontae Johnson and Justin Layne to get their hands on the ball. That’s where the similarities in their job descriptions end.The Steelers began the process of reloading following the high-profile departure of star wide receiver Antonio Brown by taking Johnson with the 66th overall selection in the NFL draft on Friday night then took aim at a secondary in serious need of a ballhawk or two by grabbing Layne with the 83rd pick.Johnson understands the parallels he shares with Brown. Both are 5-foot-10. Both are around 180 pounds. Both played collegiately in the Mid-American Conference. Both posted 40-yard dash times that didn’t exactly dazzle pro scouts.Yet Johnson — selected with a pick the Steelers acquired when they sent Brown to Oakland in March — knows that’s where the parallels end. Brown is a great player. The three-year letterman at Toledo is eager to write his own story.“At the end of the day Deandre Baker Jersey , I can only be me,” Johnson said. “Do what I do best.”Namely, attack defenses in a way that renders his lack of breakaway speed — at least according to the stopwatch — meaningless. The player who ran a so-so 4.53-second, 40-yard dash won over the Steelers’ coaching staff with his ability to win one-on-one battles at the line of scrimmage.Head coach Mike Tomlin noticed Johnson first then sent wide receivers coach Darry Drake to do some digging. What Drake found turned him into Johnson’s biggest advocate in the team’s draft war room.“He’s a tremendously gifted young man,” Drake said. “The most natural catcher that I’ve seen in a while. … He doesn’t have great timed speed but he plays the game fast. He’s really, really good against the press and this is a press league. DBs walk up to your face and try to fingerprint you. He gets off bumps, gets in and out of his breaks as well as anybody I’ve seen in a long time.”Johnson caught 43 passes for 663 yards and seven touchdowns for the Rockets as a redshirt junior last season and was named the MAC’s Special Teams Player of the Year after returning a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns. He’ll likely get a chance at special teams too, where Brown first distinguished himself after being taken in the sixth round out of Central Michigan in 2010 before developing into one of the top receivers in the league.Brown’s record-setting run in Pittsburgh ended with an ugly divorce in the offseason, with the Steelers sending him to the Raiders. They used one of the picks they acquired from Oakland to grab a player that joins a room that will have a decidedly different feel with the prolific but also high-maintenance Brown out west.This is the third straight season the Steelers have taken a wide receiver in the top three rounds of the draft. They selected JuJu Smith-Schuster in the second round in 2017 and James Washington in the second round last year. Pittsburgh signed former Jacksonville Jaguar Donte Moncrief to a two-year deal in March and also have Ryan Switzer and Eli Rogers in the mix.Drake likes Johnson’s versatility and expects the Steelers will move him around instead of just sticking him in the slot. Drake also isn’t worried about Johnson’s 40-time. The coach who counts Larry Fitzgerald among his former pupils doesn’t believe the stopwatch tells the whole story.“We want that guy, that blazer but normally with that package of that dynamic speed, very seldom do you get the total package,” Drake said. “This guy has the ability to be a total package guy.”Pittsburgh is hoping to one day say the same about Layne, who arrived at Michigan State as a wide receiver before moving to cornerback during his freshman season to help address a spate of injuries at the position. At 6-2 and 192 pounds he has the size to be a potential difference maker on the outside for a secondary that picked off just five passes in 2018.“He’s competitive http://www.newyorkgiantsteamonline.com/oshane-ximines-jersey , he’s not afraid to throw it up in there,” Steelers defensive backs coach Teryl Austin said. “He’s got a lot of good things to work with.”Even if Layne didn’t always get a chance to show it. He picked off just three passes during his career with the Spartans, though his 15 pass breakups in 2018 ranked among the top 10 in the Football Bowl Subdivision.Layne called the move from offense to defense “nothing major.” Last he checked, the game is still the game.“I’ve been playing both ways my whole life,” said Layne, who went to Benedictine High School in Cleveland, the alma mater of late Hall of Fame Steelers coach Chuck Noll. “I’m a football player today. I expected to go in the second round but it’s all good. They’re going to feel me.” Terrell Owens learned a valuable lesson at a young age from the most influential person in his life.“I’ve always listened and learned a lot from my grandmother and how she lived her life and how she wanted me to live my life,” Owens told The Associated Press about Alice Black, who died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2012. “No matter what people say about you good, bad or indifferent, you just have to believe in yourself. And when you have belief in the man above, knowing you’re not perfect, the people who walk this Earth aren’t perfect either Julian Love Jersey , and (if) you start to pass judgment and start to believe things about people who you don’t know personally, then that’s really a reflection of yourself.”Growing up in a poor family in Alabama, Owens had a difficult childhood and he was often lonely. He was raised by his grandmother and his single mother, who spent much of her time working double shifts to support her children.“Early in my career when I was an adolescent and teenager, I had self-esteem issues,” Owens said. “I had to get out of that and understand that you have to believe in yourself in order to progress in order to do anything in your life. I’m very proud of how my grandmother raised me.”Plenty of people have formed strong opinions about Owens, sometimes based on rumors and innuendo. T.O. certainly brought much of the criticism on himself with some of his outlandish behavior, but he believes he was also misunderstood at times. It was easier for critics to pile on than try to understand what made Owens tick.That’s why Owens believes it took Pro Football Hall of Fame voters three tries to finally get him into the Canton shrine, although he’s not actually going to Ohio. Miffed that he was passed over twice, Owens is skipping the induction ceremony and instead giving his acceptance speech at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.Owens said he visited the hall after his selection and decided he’d rather celebrate the big day at his alma mater.“I feel the Hall of Fame committee needs to find a better formula and format in which guys get nominated and inducted, because all the hard work we’re doing as players to better our lives, our careers, our fate is in guys’ hands that have never played before http://www.newyorkgiantsteamonline.com/darius-slayton-jersey ,” Owens said, perhaps ignoring that Hall of Famers Dan Fouts and James Lofton are among the voters. “People not giving me my recognition because a few people have said they didn’t like me. The narrative has been created and portrayed that I was divisive in the locker room and I wasn’t a good person or a bad teammate, but there have been people who have stood on the table for me and said I was a good teammate, a great player. But that’s the narrative they didn’t go with.”The 44-year-old Owens had a mostly sensational 15-year career playing for San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Buffalo and Cincinnati. He is second to Jerry Rice in receiving yards and third in touchdown catches behind Rice and Randy Moss, who was chosen in his first year of eligibility.No. 81 was a five-time All-Pro, a six-time Pro Bowl pick and one of the most entertaining players of his generation. His touchdown celebrations are legendary and no one worked harder to stay in excellent shape. Some think Owens could still play in the NFL; he has toyed with an attempted comeback in the Canadian Football League. He had 72 catches for 983 yards and nine TDs in his final season, in 2010, and finished with 1,078 receptions, 15 Quinnen Williams Jersey ,934 yards receiving and 153 TDs.Owens was part of eight playoff teams but only reached the Super Bowl once after joining the Eagles in 2004. He gave a heroic performance in Philadelphia’s 24-21 loss to New England, catching nine passes for 122 yards after defying doctor’s orders and returning to play on his surgically repaired ankle 6 1/2 weeks after an operation.“What I did, it was bigger than the Super Bowl for me,” Owens said. “I understood the ultimate goal was to win the game and that was heavily on my mind, and I think with my performance, you can tell that was what was on my mind. But coming out of that tunnel for the first time, the media was waiting for me to run around on the field and go through my normal routine like I do before every game just to get a glimpse, see if I was limping, things of that nature on that ankle. Coming out of that tunnel, I wanted people to know my faith in God was the No. 1 reason I was able to do what I did.”