Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Diontae Johnson missed Thursday's practice with a knee injury.

Johnson has now missed two straight practices and will likely need to practice in some fashion on Friday in order to be cleared to play on Sunday. The Steelers have one of their easier opponents of 2021 on deck for Week 3, so the team may opt to play it safe with their star receiver. This is a situation to monitor, and we will provide another update tomorrow when his practice participation is reported. Diontae is currently our 39th ranked receiver for Week 3.

Steelers WR Diontae Johnson (knee) did not practice Wednesday according to Doug Kyed of of Pro Football Focus.

This is an injury to follow especially with Ben Roethlisberger dealing with a pectoral injury. If Johnson were to miss Week 3, James Washington would enter in three-wideout sets.

Mike Tomlin says Diontae Johnson's knee injury is "looking better, not to be confused with great."

Johnson, of course, was injured on the last play of the game with the Steelers having not chance to pull out a victory over the Raiders. Johnson had to be helped off the field but reports Monday said the injury wasn't serious. However, this update still doesn't paint a clear picture of his status for Week 3.

Steelers WR Diontae Johnson did not suffer a serious injury yesterday, source says.

The twitter world was outraged when with no chance to win Johnson caught a pass, cut across the field, was injured and needed help getting off the field. It looked like a knee injury but there was no other information in the tweet. While it's great news and a big sigh of relief for owners, his status for Sunday vs. the Bengals is still to be determined, according to the tweet.

Steelers WR James Washington has requested a trade according to multiple sources including Adam Schefter of ESPN. Dave Lolley of DKPittsburghSports.com also writes that the additions of Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool via the NFL Draft and JuJu Smith-Schuster re-signing add to Washington's request. Ray-Ray McCloud played ahead of Washington during the Hall of Fame game August 5.

It also matters that Pittsburgh drafted Najee Harris with the expectation of running the ball more. Washington is a starting-caliber receiver that stretches the field. If he does end up being moved, Washington will go from fantasy irrelevancy to late-round flyer depending on his landing spot.

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger wants to continue playing next season and, barring a change of heart, intends to fulfill the terms of a contract that has one season remaining on it after this one, league sources tell ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Related players: JuJu Smith-Schuster, Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson

According to the story, sources around Roethlisberger believe the two-time Super Bowl champion is having too much fun and likes his team too much to walk away from it after the 2020 season. Who can blame Big Ben, with a young group of emerging receivers Ben could probably play a couple more years as long as the feelings are mutual.

Eric Ebron played two-thirds of the snaps and Diontae Johnson less than half.

Related players: JuJu Smith-Schuster, James Conner, Benny Snell, James Washington, Jaylen Samuels

Johnson had two early drops in the game on Sunday night and didn't see the field much the rest of the second half. He was replaced by Washington. The Steelers tried to get Johnson going in the second half with some easy catches but in the end owners were hurt by his first half drops. Meanwhile, the tweet said Smith-Schuster didn't leave the field on offense and Samuels led all RBs in snaps. The Steelers did trail much of the game after a pick-six by the Bills so that could explain Samuels' snaps, but the Steelers have struggled to run the ball as of late, too.