With roster cutdowns just around the corner, Kozora put forward a pair of last-second Steelers Trade ideas that would move Kaleb Johnson and reshape the draft-pick board. One would send Johnson and a seventh-round pick to the Dallas Cowboys for a sixth-round pick; the other would send the same package to the Los Angeles Rams for the same return.
That kind of move matters now because Pittsburgh is staring at the edge of the deadline and trying to decide which pieces are worth carrying into the season. In one of the proposals, the Steelers could even get back the sixth-round pick they sent to Dallas in the George Pickens trade, turning a little-used asset into another swing at the board before the cuts hit.
The Johnson idea rests on a simple reading of his summer. There is little belief he will make the Steelers' roster, and that is true even though he has three years left on his deal, including 2026. The problem is not the contract. It is the appeal. Running backs do not carry the same value as higher-priority spots, and when the summer showing does not force the issue, a team has to decide whether the player is a future piece or just a name with years attached to it.
The other proposal is more direct: send a fifth-round pick to the Cowboys for Ryan Flournoy. Flournoy was a sixth-round pick in 2024, then finished last season with 40 receptions, 475 yards and four touchdowns. He ascended and played well under Brian Schottenheimer, which is why he reads less like a throw-in and more like a usable receiver the Steelers could try to pull into a thin room.
There is a separate layer to that idea as well. The Rams moved RB Jarquez Hunter to the Miami Dolphins for WR Tutu Atwell, a reminder that these roster decisions are often connected by the same search for role players at the margins. The Pittsburgh proposals are still hypothetical exercises, not completed business, and that is the point: they are meant to test how much value the Steelers could squeeze out of the days before cutdowns.
What comes next is plain enough. Pittsburgh has to decide whether Johnson is worth keeping despite the muted belief around him, or whether the wiser play is to turn him into draft capital while another team takes the chance. Flournoy is the cleaner fit if the Steelers want help at WR, but the real question is whether they want to make any of these moves at all before the deadline closes the door.
