Still young, JuJu Smith-Schuster brings Steelers ‘wisdom’

JuJu Smith-Schuster’s public persona largely is constructed by way of platforms equivalent to TikTok, Instagram Live and his private Youtube channel. On them is portrayed a fun-loving younger man who plays video games, dances and engages in different exuberant hi jinks.

It’s a picture that’s gained the Pittsburgh Steelers huge receiver tens of millions in endorsements and made him one of many NFL’s most marketable gamers.

@juju

@adamdtaylor digital camera work is insane haha ##lit ##juju ##pittsburgh

♬ 3 Musketeers (feat. NextYoungin) – NextYoungin & ppcocaine

It’s an id that may very well be described as outgoing, jovial, carefree or, in Smith-Schuster’s personal parlance, “lit.”

Now, distinction these descriptors with a few of the phrases coach Mike Tomlin used this week when describing what Smith-Schuster brings to the Steelers.

“Expertise.” “Knowledge.” “Steering.”

“He’s very sturdy,” Tomlin stated. “Robust palms. He’s an excellent combat-catch man. However I’m extra involved in regards to the intangible issues that his journey thus far brings.”

Smith-Schuster stays the second-youngest of the 9 receivers on the Steelers’ camp roster. However no person in his place room has performed extra NFL seasons or appeared in additional video games — and, by far, none can come near matching his career production (together with playoffs: 214 catches, 2,900 receiving yards, 19 touchdowns).

That 20-year-old child Pittsburgh fell in love with three years in the past when he was studying for his driver’s license or sleuthing to find his stolen bicycle? He’s all grown up now, not less than relative to the Steelers’ huge receivers.

“He brings extra expertise than the remainder, and that have supplies a platform for experience, knowledge, steering, amongst different issues,” Tomlin stated. “I’m simply speaking about intangible qualities that his journey separates him from the remainder of them. His abilities are his abilities. They communicate for themselves.

“He’s a younger man, however he has a wealth of expertise. He’s been to the Professional Bowl, issues of that nature, that the opposite youthful guys within the room can lean on and glean info from.”

However how does Smith-Schuster describe what he brings? He solutions virtually as if he’s in character, desperately making an attempt to buttress his picture.

Requested what distinctive abilities he brings to the Steelers WR corps, JuJu Smith-Schuster says he’s a motivator who retains issues enjoyable and “all the time retains it lit” pic.twitter.com/W3dOkexT0F

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) August 17, 2020

“Man, simply having enjoyable,” Smith-Schuster stated this week. “I’m positively the man that’s making an attempt to make everybody giggle and revel in their job. Making the perfect out of it. There are days the place we’re drained or we’re down and really feel like we simply don’t need to do it, however I’m the man that is available in and says, ‘Let’s go, man. Let’s have enjoyable in the present day, take advantage of out of it.’

“Like I stated, we’re all the time lit.”

Smith-Schuster is coming into the ultimate 12 months of his contract and will make himself a load of cash if he proves to be a No. 1 receiver. His most efficient seasons got here when he was the Robin to Antonio Brown’s Batman.