Can Jonnu Smith Forge Fantasy Success With the Steelers in 2025?

Jonnu Smith is coming off a career year, has earned a nice new contract, and is reunited with a coach under whom he has enjoyed the bulk of his career production. Everything in the Smith household looks rosy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going to be a superstar in fantasy football in 2025.

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Career Year in 2024

Smith enjoyed a fantastic first and, what turned out to be, his only season with the Miami Dolphins. Smith saw 111 targets and caught 88 balls for 884 yards, all totals career highs and the fourth most among all tight ends. He was also fourth with 510 yards after the catch, an area that has been a hallmark of Smith’s career, while his eight touchdowns were the second most at the position. Smith finished the season averaging 10.5 Half-PPR points per game, good for TE5 across the 2024 campaign.

New Team, New Opportunities

Smith was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers a few weeks ago, and there are so many reasons on paper why this is a fabulous move for him. Firstly, he is reunited with Arthur Smith, the Steelers' offensive coordinator. The Smiths have been around each other for quite some time, with Arthur the tight ends coach with the Titans when they selected Jonnu in 2017. Arthur then called plays for the Titans with Jonnu on the team from 2019-2020, with the two joining forces again in Atlanta in 2023. 41% of Smith’s career receptions have come when Arthur has called plays, along with 44% of his yards and exactly 50% of his touchdowns. Arthur likes getting Jonnu involved.

There are also a whopping 212 vacated targets on the Steelers offense from a year ago, the fifth most of any team in the league. 15 of their targets from inside the 10-yard line are out the door, which is particularly good news for Smith, who saw 19 red zone targets a year ago. The Steelers also face a tough slate of games this season, with the ninth-hardest schedule in the league according to Sharp Football. This may mean that they take to the air to fill those vacated targets. So, this is all gravy for Smith and makes him a surefire fantasy stud in 2025, right?

Well...

Competing with Players, Playcalls, and Time

Jonnu is not the only new addition to the Steelers' offense this season. They swung another blockbuster trade to land DK Metcalf from the Seahawks, paying him a hefty new contract for the privilege. Metcalf has averaged 127 targets a season in his NFL career, and those came on some pretty run-heavy Seahawks squads. You would suspect that the cost of acquiring him and the money given to him means he has not been brought in to play second fiddle behind Jonnu Smith.

If there’s one thing Arthur Smith loves to do more than getting Jonnu Smith the ball, it is calling run plays. The guy loves to see the ball in the belly of a running back. In six seasons as an offensive play caller, Smith’s teams have never ranked higher than 28th in neutral pass rate or 29th in overall pass rate. Only once in those six seasons has a Smith team ranked higher than 25th in overall pass attempts.

An absence of passing plays is one thing, but the overall pace of play is another factor that Smith’s fantasy managers should be acutely aware of. New Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers tends to leave things late when it comes to snapping the ball, routinely waiting until there are mere seconds left on the play clock before acting. Between 2018 and 2022, the Packers (with Rodgers under center for most of the games) averaged a league-high 30.2 seconds per offensive snap. This time sucks offensive plays out of the game, and allied with a run-heavy play caller, receiving opportunities may not be as plentiful as Smith enthusiasts like me would prefer.

Making the Most of Chances

In the absence of heavy volume, Smith will likely have to lean on his efficiency to deliver. Smith has been able to establish solid chemistry with a host of less-than-stellar quarterbacks over his career. The likes of Tua Tagovailoa, Tyler Huntley, Ryan Tannehill, and Desmond Ridder all average well over 8.0 adjusted yards per attempt when looking Smith’s way. All of this is a good sign that he won’t be a total zero as a pass catcher with Rodgers, even if the future Hall of Famer doesn’t have a great track record of feeding his tight ends.

Fantasy Outlook 2025

Since moving to the Steelers, Smith has become somewhat unpopular among best ball drafters. His typical ADP on Underdog is currently the TE19, with Smith going five rounds later than he was in April. Our rankings have him as the TE14. This seems fair to me. Smith will have weeks where he may well produce viable numbers, but it’s going to be hard to predict when those weeks will fall.

As much as it breaks my heart, especially after last season, I don’t think I can recommend Smith as a player you need to come out of your drafts on your roster in redraft this year. He’ll have some streaming appeal as the season progresses, but those heady days of 2024? They’re all lost, like tears in the rain.

The Bottom Line

• Jonnu Smith enjoyed a breakout season in 2024, posting career numbers across the board.

• The Steelers offense, faced with a daunting schedule, has plenty of vacated targets for Metcalf and Smith.

• The Steelers' OC’s playcalling and their QBs' lack of urgency to snap the ball will limit opportunities to catch the ball, severely capping the upside of Smith and every other Steelers receiver in 2025.