Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has come to like working with offensive coordinator Todd Haley and Haley has come to like working with the Pittsburgh receiving corps.
The Steelers have lost three of their top wide receivers over the last two years with Mike Wallace, Jerricho Cotchery and Emmanuel Sanders all leaving as free agents. Antonio Brown remains, but, outside of Lance Moore, none of the other players currently on the roster have much history as effective pass catchers in the NFL. That isn’t stopping Haley from calling the group as deep as any other one he’s coached in his career.
“It’s as deep a group as I’ve been around from top to bottom,” Haley said, via ESPN.com. “I think some guys that are pretty good football players probably won’t make the team.”
In addition to those Steelers wideouts, Haley also coached Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn with Dallas and Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin in Arizona so he has been around some productive receiver groups multiple times in his career.
The difference between this group and others that Haley has coached is that those other groups were made up of players with established track records. Markus Wheaton, Justin Brown and Martavis Bryant have a lot of promise, but they haven’t translated on the field at this point. They’ll need to do that to prove Haley correct and the Steelers will be looking pretty strong offensively if they do.