Steelers tight end Vance McDonald provided one of the signature moments of the 2018 season when he stiff-armed Buccaneers safety Chris Conte on his way to a 75-yard touchdown in an early-season Monday night game in Tampa. The NFL Films highlight reel play aside, last season was the best of McDonald’s six-year career for a number of other reasons.
The Cam Heyward reaction 👈🏽 (r @LoveThePuck) pic.twitter.com/21C0HDsgyc
— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) September 25, 2018
He set career highs in receptions (50) and yards (610) and tied his career high with four touchdown catches. In an offense with Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Conner, those are some impressive statistics.
Without Brown as the No. 1 option next season, McDonald knows quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the coaches will be asking more from him.
“It’s required, it’s definitely being asked, and I will embrace it,” McDonald said Tuesday afternoon following the first organized team activity of the week at the team’s training facility on the South Side.
A second-round pick of San Francisco in 2013, McDonald has always had the athletic ability to become a productive No. 1 tight end, but injuries were problematic for him before last season. He missed 15 games over his first four seasons with the 49ers and then missed six in his first season with the Steelers.
Last season, McDonald finally had a season without a major injury, playing in 15 games with 14 starts.
“I didn’t do anything majorly different,” he said. “I guess it just happened. I was fortunate and happy to go through a season without a whole bunch of stuff. So we’ll do it again this year.”
McDonald is a natural to become more involved in the offense. After Smith-Schuster and Brown, he was next in targets. Roethlisberger threw to him 72 times, and he caught a career-best 69% of those targets. He’s also developed a strong on- and off-field relationship with Roethlisberger.
The great mystery of the offseason is exactly how the Steelers will go about replacing Brown’s 114 catches and 1,527 yards — his gaudy average over the past six seasons — but McDonald believes the Steelers have the players to make up for it.
“The things A.B. is capable of doing … he’s a freak, he’s so good,” McDonald said. “Ben is the best quarterback who will allow us to take that piece that A.B. was given and now allow it to go through different avenues, whether it’s the tight ends or the receivers. It will take some part of the coaches, too. Obviously, you’re calling plays specifically for A.B. in the game. Now it might go to JuJu, [Donte] Moncrief, Eli [Rogers] or [Ryan Switzer] or me or the other tight ends. It will be fun and interesting to see how we can be creative and let that happen.
“Great players are great players, but at the end of the day, it’s 11 guys doing their job,” he continued. “And if we do that, I think we have the guys. We might not have guys with Brown or Bell on the back of their jerseys, but man, if you can play the position and make plays, then we can get it done.”
McDonald is by far the most-experienced player in a tight end room short on depth. Jesse James, who started 36 games over the past four seasons, signed as a free agent with Detroit, leaving Xavier Grimble as the top backup to McDonald. Zach Gentry, a rookie fifth-round pick, and a few others will be vying for the No. 3 job this summer.
Grimble is entering his fourth season with the Steelers, but he’s never had more than 11 receptions in any of his previous three seasons with the team. Unlike McDonald, Grimble’s most notable play of 2018 was fumbling at the 1-yard line in Denver, one of many plays that contributed to a crucial late-season loss to the Broncos that kept the Steelers out of the playoffs.
Given the way the Steelers like to use two tight ends, Grimble’s development over the next few months will be closely watched by coaches.
“I’ve been here for four or five years,” Grimble said. “It’s time to expand. I’m looking for every opportunity I can get to go out there and play hard, showcase myself and help this team win games.”
Two years ago, the Steelers had James and Grimble as their top two tight ends entering training camp. Unhappy with their play during camp, general manager Kevin Colbert went out and traded for McDonald to be the starter.
There has been speculation Colbert could do the same thing this summer if Grimble and the other reserves don’t distinguish themselves. Given the depth at the position, McDonald enters the season as one of the players the Steelers can least afford to lose to injury.
In addition to Gentry, there are a few other tight ends on the roster this spring but none with NFL experience.
“It’ll be fun, but especially when we get to Latrobe,” McDonald said. “We’re playing football now, but we’re not because we don’t have pads on. With the tight end position, we have to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of blocking, and that will be the big component for who sits at No. 3 behind X and I. It’s just one of those things. It is what it is. Until we get to Latrobe we won’t know. I would encourage them to get into their playbooks.”
Ray Fittipaldo: rfittipaldo@post-gazette.com and Twitter @rayfitt1.
First Published: May 28, 2019, 6:09 p.m.
