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Steelers WR Calvin Austin is growing up tough: 'He's not afraid of anything'

20 December 2024Last Update :
Steelers WR Calvin Austin is growing up tough: 'He's not afraid of anything'

PITTSBURGH — Tempers flared when bodies collided in the City of Brotherly Love, as simmering tensions between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles bubbled over.

The fracas began when Steelers 6-foot-7 tight end Darnell Washington blocked Eagles corner Darius Slay through the end zone and into a padded wall at the base of the stands. Chaos ensued. Numerous players from both teams converged. Insults flew and many people (other than the referees) saw fists fly, too.

By the time the referees separated the two sides and sorted out the penalties, they gave both to Pittsburgh: One on Washington, who is even bigger than the 264-pound listing in the program. And the other? A somewhat surprising perpetrator, Calvin Austin III, a 5-foot-9, 162-pound receiver who is often the smallest player on the field.

“If I see plenty of Eagles come up and surround (Washington), yeah I’m gonna come in and help my dog,” Austin said after the game. “But I guess being the biggest guy out there, I’m going to get a flag thrown on me.”

Though Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith made it clear this week that he’d like the aggression to take place between the whistles, that moment illuminated a side of Austin that may go overlooked.

“You look at Calvin, you be like, he’s a little dude,” Washington said. “But he actually got a little bee sting to him.”

In his third NFL season, the undersized receiver has grown in more ways than one. After the Steelers dealt Diontae Johnson this offseason, they needed someone to step up to fill the void at No. 2 receiver. Austin has been the player who has best risen to the occasion. He’s caught 28 passes for 452 yards and four touchdowns and has returned 23 punts for 259 yards and a touchdown.

While track-caliber speed is his calling card, allowing him to get in and out of breaks to create separation and stress a defense vertically, he’s also shown a fearless attitude and a willingness to embrace the physicality that comes with his position. That’s on display when he catches a punt and jukes out a defender racing down the field with a head of steam or when he’s going over the middle to make a contested catch.

“It’s not just part of my game. It’s who I am in general, just how I carry myself,” Austin said. “It’s just how I was raised. Just no quit. It’s all about your heart, really. What you’re about and what you stand for.”

The early roots of Austin’s football life were planted in Memphis, Tennessee, where Austin was raised in a sports-obsessed family surrounded by older cousins and uncles. Playing against family members who were years older and several heads taller, touch football games often became more rough-and-tumble than the rules permitted.

“They’d never take it easy on me,” Austin said. “I know my mama used to hate how my dad would have me out there with them. Even when I was 3, 4 or 5, I would be out there and they would not take it easy. From then on, if I fall, it was on me to get up. It’s not like I’m gonna cry and get babied. Little stuff like that kind of made me into the person and the player I am today.”

They say you can’t hit what you can’t catch. Austin may not have been able to outmuscle his opponents, but he sure could outrun them. One afternoon, he cut back, juked out his cousins and raced all the way to the game-winning touchdown.

“They were calling me Cutback,” Austin said. “That’s one of the first memories I have.”

As Austin developed, high school opponents found him just as hard to catch. In three varsity seasons at Harding Academy in Memphis, Austin racked up 3,492 all-purpose yards, 2,071 total yards from scrimmage and scored 49 touchdowns (24 receiving, eight rushing, six punt returns, five kick returns, four interception returns and two fumble returns).

A nine-time state champion sprinter, Austin looked for an opportunity to outrace the competition on the football field and on the track. He found it at Memphis, where he walked onto both teams due to the so-called “Bear Bryant rule,” which stipulates if an athlete plays two collegiate sports, including football, the scholarship must come from the football team. By his senior year, he led the Tigers with 74 receptions, 1,149 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. He posted two of the top-five single-game receiving yards performances in school history in 2021, including a 239-yard outburst against Arkansas State that ranks second in team history.

Then, at the NFL Scouting Combine in 2022, Austin turned heads with a 4.32 40-yard dash, the fifth fastest at that year’s event. The Steelers, a team with a history of finding WR gems in the middle rounds, nabbed him in the fourth (No. 138).

“Being from Memphis myself and my brother playing in that program, I’m pretty close to that program,” said Smith, who was head coach of the Atlanta Falcons at the time Austin was drafted. “We wanted to potentially draft him when I was in Atlanta, and obviously Pittsburgh took him.”

His first training camp, Austin began to show he could be yet another mid-round Steelers receiver who outperformed his draft position. He was wowing on the practice field and getting positive feedback from coaches. But any chance of contributing early was taken away when a Lisfranc injury in his left foot ended his rookie season before it began.

“I went into the training room and they told me,” Austin said. “I just went out to the field and just started crying. I felt small.”

That day, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin told Austin to meet with him before the annual team fashion show.

“He was just basically reaffirming me, saying they know what type of player I am, how hard I’m working, and just do whatever the rehab takes to get back,” Austin said. “He was just telling me to still go to meetings, still travel to the games and stuff, and be 100 percent involved. He just didn’t make me feel small. He made me feel like I mattered.”

Finally healthy, Austin began to flash his potential in a limited role last year. He tallied 237 yards from scrimmage, 249 return yards and a pair of touchdowns. But with George Pickens and Johnson receiving the lion’s share of the targets, Austin was mostly a member of the supporting cast. That began to change this offseason, when the Steelers decided to deal Johnson, opening the door for Austin to ascend into a larger role.

“Ever since he came to San Diego (before the season), I got to spend time with him and go to dinner and hang out and throw and work out together,” quarterback Russell Wilson said. “I was just incredibly excited about him and who he is as a player, as a person, as a competitor. He has the grit, the guts to be able to play hard and be a smaller guy. You know, it’s not easy to do, to be honest with you.”

While Austin is not going to catch many jump balls over defensive backs, the third-year receiver has become a productive part of the offense by leaning into his strengths, often using his speed to create separation and yards after catch. Of his 28 catches, 11 have gone for 16 yards or more (39.3%), adding a much-needed explosive element to the offense.

“You’ve got to use what God gave you to your advantage,” Steelers 5-9, 174-pound receiver Scotty Miller said. “It’s not easy. I may be a little bit bigger than him, but not by much. I know how difficult it can be out there going up against a corner that’s 6-2, 200 pounds. But I think just his ability to release, get off the line of scrimmage, use his quicks, use his hands, that’s when all the work he puts in during the offseason, and during the season, all comes to fruition.”

At the same time, Austin is willing to go over the middle and has absorbed countless big hits in the process. In Week 10, a hit from the Washington Commanders forced him to leave the game. A few weeks later in Cincinnati, he was blown up over the middle on a play that was penalized. He remained in the game until a separate blow to his head caused the athletic trainers to pull him out.

“He’s not afraid of anything,” Miller said. “He would have gone back in if the trainers let him.”

Now, as the Steelers prepare for their biggest game of the season in Baltimore, they’ll be counting upon Austin as much as ever in a rough-and-tumble AFC North matchup. If the Steelers win in Baltimore, they will clinch the division title.

That’s easier said than done. On Thursday, the Steelers ruled out Pickens, who will miss his third consecutive game with a hamstring injury. It’s hard to overstate how significant that loss will be. Over the first 13 weeks when he was healthy, Pickens received 27.7% of the Steelers’ targets, according to TruMedia. Only four receivers had a greater target share over that span.

The last time the Steelers played the Ravens on Nov. 17, Pickens racked up season highs in targets (12) and catches (eight), yet the Steelers still failed to reach the end zone. Especially with Pickens out, Austin has been one of Wilson’s favorite weapons, with nine targets and six receptions over the last two weeks.

If the Steelers are going to overcome the absence of their biggest playmaker, they’ll need one of their smallest athletes to step up again.

“He reminds me a lot of (former Seattle teammate) Tyler Lockett in terms of his ability to understand and process on the move and see things,” Wilson said. “And he just has an appetite for learning. I think that anytime you have an appetite for learning and processing and growing, I think you got a great chance.

“He’s been one of the biggest highlights, I think, not just of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but of the National Football League, in terms of a guy that’s up and coming and has a great chance to be really special.”

(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)

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