PITTSBURGH — You can call Ben Skowronek a dirtbag if you want. The Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver seems just find with that moniker. It’s the one that’s next to his name on the team’s roster that he seems to have an issue with.
Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith was extolling the blocking of his eligible receivers in short-yardage situations on Thursday, when he highlighted Skowronek with an unusual compliment.
“What you want to see as you get in December, and we talk about our style of play, it’s not just the five guys up front,” Smith started, in a fairly normal level of coach-speak, complimenting the likes of Steelers wide receivers Van Jefferson, Scotty Miller and Skowronek.
Then thinks got a little weirder.
“Sometimes you it takes for you to watch a couple times to appreciate what Van Jefferson did in that game, Scotty, and Skowronek week in and week out,” Smith said. “He’s got a lot of dirtbag to him, which we appreciate.”
That’s not usually how those words are used, but when I approached him, Skowronek said took the saying as a compliment.
I then followed that up with the thought that not many NFL wide receivers would likely take that as a compliment.
“I’m not a wide receiver,” Skowronek replied.
Skowronek followed that up by saying he’s not a wide receiver, but a football player.
Honestly, that fits. The 6-foot-3, 224-pound Skowronek has more tackles as a punt gunner (four) than catches (two) this season. He also has two fumble recoveries. Against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, he goaded punt returner Kadarius Toney into taking a personal foul one time down the field, then the next, pounced on the ball when Toney muffed the punt.
The previous week as the Steelers dominated in Cincinnati, he blocked Bengals safety Geno Stone about seven yards into the end zone on a Najee Harris touchdown run. He probably didn’t even have to block him for Harris to score. Skowronek just seems to enjoy hitting people. That’s not very wide receiver-like.
Skowronek wouldn’t be the first player to have football player as his roster sobriquet. In 2021, Virginia listed former quarterback Keytaon Thompson as the starter at FBP — football player — on their depth chart. The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Thompson, who couldn’t throw because of a shoulder injury, played all over the Virginia offense as a running back, wide receiver and tight end.
“He embraced everything he could do, can do, will do to help this program, in just a really special way with never anything other than optimism, hope, work, and then becoming what the team needs him to be,” then-Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall said in 2021.
Sound familiar?
Informed of this precedent, Skowronek immediately started lobbying Steelers special teams coach Danny Smith to make the change. Smith seemed unmoved.
That just goes to show you. You can call Skowronek a dirtbag. Just don’t call him a wide receiver.