Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin says that wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster has entered the NFL's concussion protocol, according to Gerry Dulac of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Smith-Schuster suffered a concussion during the second quarter of his team's loss to the Cleveland Browns last Thursday. He also sustained a leg injury on the same play. He logged a couple of catches for 21 yards in the defeat.
On the season overall, Smith-Schuster has tallied 38 catches for 524 yards and three touchdowns.
The 22-year-old, who played his collegiate football at the University of Southern California, was originally selected by the Steelers in the second round (62nd pick overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft.
He played in 14 games during his rookie campaign and was impressive, catching 58 passes for 917 yards and seven scores. Then, last year, Smith-Schuster broke out in a big way, hauling in 111 receptions for 1,426 yards and seven touchdowns en route to the Pro Bowl.
With Antonio Brown's departure this past offseason, Smith-Schuster was immediately elevated to the role of Pittsburgh's No. 1 receiver, but his production thus far in 2019 has been disappointing.
Of course, Smith-Schuster's middling output is hardly all his fault, as Ben Roethlisberger went down with an elbow injury in Week 2, and the Steelers' offense as a whole has been an unmitigated disaster for much of the year.
Pittsburgh started the season 0-3, but it has won five of its last seven games to vault itself into playoff contention in the AFC.
Still, the Steelers' postseason hopes are relatively slim, and with Smith-Schuster's status in question going forward, the chances of Pittsburgh making the playoffs don't seem all that great.
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