Updated Fantasy Football Outlooks for Jonnu Smith, DK Metcalf, and Pat Freiermuth: Post Steelers-Dolphins Trade

John's fantasy football outlooks for Jonnu Smith, DK Metcalf, and Pat Friermuth after the Steelers trade with the Dolphins. Should you draft Smith, Metcalf, or Freiermuth?

New Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Jonnu Smith was just traded to his new team from the Miami Dolphins in a multi-player deal that included cornerback Jalen Ramsey, safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, and some draft selections. Smith will now rejoin his old offensive coach, Arthur Smith.

This trade will certainly have meaningful impacts on fantasy football for the Dolphins players. Smith had a significant role there, and his absence should create more opportunities for their other pass-catchers. But this piece will focus on the Steelers players.

Smith himself, wide receiver DK Metcalf, and tight end Pat Freiermuth are now set to be at least three of the top-4 Pittsburgh pass-catching threats, and we should probably re-evaluate them all from a fantasy football perspective. So let's dive into fantasy football outlooks for Smith, Metcalf, and Freiermuth for the 2025 NFL season!

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Jonnu Smith Fantasy Football Outlook

It appears that a significant portion of the community isn't overly concerned about Smith's new landing spot. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The tight end, who had a career year last year with the Miami Dolphins, now gets a massive downgrade by returning to an offense run by offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.

Smith won't be calling so many low-average-depth-of-target passing plays for the tight end. Instead, he'll do one of his favorite things, which is getting the ball spread around more among his TEs and using them as run-block-heavy players, like he loves to do.

How unfair. Everyone knows Jonnu Smith is best as a receiver rather than a blocker.

Instead, look for him to beef up the Steelers' dropback efficiency from 13 personnel.

Last year, they did that 64 times (most in the NFL), averaging...

...just 3.5 adjusted net yards/attempt🤔 https://t.co/RnGdSvvifT

— Ryan Heath (@RyanJ_Heath) June 30, 2025

Smith's offense is very strange. Despite having absolutely terrible efficiency when doing so, Smith loves running 3-TE sets, or formations in which there are three tight ends on the field. Expect plenty of Freiermuth, Smith (Jonnu), and Darnell Washington plays.

Seeing takes on here that Jonnu heading to PIT is a neutral move for him.

I can’t get behind that at all. He moves to a far lower upside offense in PIT, one that also has a solid inline TE option in Freiermuth that will certainly eat up some of Jonnu’s snaps/routes. Pretty low… https://t.co/kyyff5W2RB

— Dataroma (@ffdataroma) June 30, 2025

J. Smith was targeted 111 times in 2024 in Miami. In 2023, he was only fed 70 passes. He finished as the TE17 in 2023 and the TE4 in 2024. What's the reason things will be much different this year than they were in 2023? I fail to find anything compelling.

J. Smith finishing as the TE17 again this season seems reasonable. He'll be in the same weird, run-heavy offense that doesn't hyper-target any one player. He won't be the first option in the pass-catching game, not that being the second option is any good either.

You might not be able to trust him at all as a starter. Tight ends outside the top-5 are almost never consistent, and outside the top-10 are usually worthless as fantasy assets. If you had him in dynasty fantasy football leagues, I hope you traded him away as soon as the trade rumors started surfacing.

DK Metcalf Fantasy Football Outlook

Just when there was a tiny reason to believe that a Steelers pass-catcher could have a solid season, Pittsburgh comes in to absolutely ruin that and remind you that you shouldn't waste draft picks on them in fantasy football. Not one player other than running back Derrick Henry has reached his potential in an Arthur Smith offense.

With just wide receiver Calvin Austin III and Freiermuth as his main target competition, Metcalf looked to be set to get a huge target share. I still wouldn't have drafted him, because I have zero faith in A. Smith to run an offense that's good for fantasy football production.

Jonnu ➡️ Pittsburgh

I’m guessing we see PIT go a lot of 2 TE sets with Muth/Jonnu, but this pretty undeniably hurts both of them. Also hurts the “DK is going to have 35% target share crowd”

Rodgers struggled down the field last year and needed a short area/YAC threat to dump… https://t.co/DdKlUKTleb

— Dataroma (@ffdataroma) June 30, 2025

That was never going to happen. A. Smith loves spreading the ball around way too much. He was instrumental, with the Tennessee Titans, in ensuring that elite wide receiver A.J. Brown never reached his potential. We didn't see him unlock that potential until he was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.

So, to think that Metcalf will have a career year with the Steelers, with a 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers on his last gasp in the NFL still trying to play football like he's 25 years old, I don't understand the hype around Metcalf. This is likely a downgrade -- before his injury last season, he was having a very solid year.

Huge downgrade for Jonnu Smith, who gets to go from Mike McDaniel, who fed him 111 targets in 2024, to Arthur Smith, who fed him... 70 targets in 2023. Totally the same thing, right? pic.twitter.com/pPkkrY1fYD

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) June 30, 2025

Yes, it can be a downgrade for both players at the same time. 70 targets are nothing to sneeze at when it comes to taking those targets away from another player. We could see an offense spreading the ball around much more evenly than we want between Freiermuth, Washington, Austin, Metcalf, and J. Smith.

That's what you should expect as well. I don't really see the reason to draft Metcalf, knowing that he could suffer from abysmal quarterback play on a run-heavy offense with a washed quarterback and offensive coordinator that's virtually guaranteed to hold him back from his full potential.

Pat Freiermuth Fantasy Football Outlook

The Muth is likely to receive a huge downgrade here. It's not as if he was a world-beater to start with, though -- which shouldn't come as a surprise, because pass-catchers on A. Smith offenses never are. But he was at least serviceable in deeper leagues, especially those with tight-end-premium scoring.

That's not the case anymore. Freiermuth is no longer the best tight end in Pittsburgh, so he could have his TE1 job stolen from him. Whatever that means in an A. Smith offense, anyway. Freiermuth was targeted 78 times in 2024. J. Smith's 70 targets from 2023 signify that he'll likely absorb many of those.

In one fell swoop, both Jonnu Smith and Pat Freiermuth lose a ton of fantasy value.

I do not like this. Not one bit.

— Dave Kluge (@DaveKluge) June 30, 2025

The math here isn't tough to do, and it's not complicated to understand that Freiermuth will likely get a downgrade. But he was the TE9 in PPR leagues last season. That might seem fine until you realize he was just the TE13 in PPR points per game, with 9.9.

There were only four tight ends who gave teams a significant season-long boost last year. San Francisco 49ers TE George Kittle, Las Vegas Raiders TE Brock Bowers, Arizona Cardinals TE Trey McBride, and the aforementioned J. Smith. This trade basically ruins Smith's value.

Freiermuth at least had a chance to become more relevant with the Rodgers move. Rodgers could produce more passing volume than Russell Wilson did last season. But this all but destroys his value, so you should look elsewhere for a potential breakout tight end that could help you get to the fantasy playoffs.

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