I’m not sure if you’ve heard the news, but the Steelers are about to kick off their 2024 campaign with the receiver position destined to be a concern from Week 1 through Week 18. Maybe even in the playoffs if they make it that far. But how can they make it that far with Van Jefferson being the Y to George Pickens’s X? Or is it the other way around? No matter how you slice it, who will be the Z? Will it be rookie Roman Wilson, or did an injury at training camp prevent him from getting enough reps to be prepared? Will it be Calvin Austin? Scotty Miller?

After months of speculation, we do know that Brandon Aiyuk, the most sought-after non-Steeler in the history of the Steelers, will not be coming to town to fill any of those letters, not after finally–mercifully–agreeing to a lucrative, new deal with his first and only team: The 49ers.

How will the Steelers do in 2024 with perhaps the worst receiving room in the NFL? Maybe they’ll win the AFC North.

I realize then has nothing to do with now, but that was precisely what the 1983 Pittsburgh Steelers did with maybe the worst receiving room in the NFL that season. OK, it was the AFC Central, but that’s what we called the North in those days. At any rate, the sentiment remains the same: The Steelers once won a division title with a very bad receiving corps, one whose leader led the team with 39 receptions.

Who was that receiver? None other than Calvin Sweeney, a fourth-round pick out of USC in the 1979 NFL Draft. After not recording a single stat in his rookie year, Sweeney caught a combined 19 passes over his next three seasons while biding his time behind Lynn Swann and John Stallworth (maybe you’ve heard of them). The Steelers Super Bowl days of the 1970s were gone for good, but I’m not sure if anyone had caught on by 1983. That was going to be Swann’s first year of retirement. Thankfully, Pittsburgh still had Stallworth around to act as the leader of the wideouts. Sweeney would finally get a real chance to break through as the team’s No. 2 alongside No. 82.

In the meantime, Pittsburgh used the 1983 NFL Draft to replenish its receiving corps. Wayne Capers was a second-round pick out of Kansas, while Paul Skansi (Washington) and Gregg Garrity (Penn State) were selected in the fifth round.

Surely, someone from that rookie class of receivers failed to make the team, right? Wrong. All three made it–even the two from the fifth round. Fortunately, Stallworth, like Swann, a future Hall of Fame inductee, was still around to do most of the heavy lifting.

Nope.

Instead, Stallworth’s presence was almost as scarce as Terry Bradshaw’s; Bradshaw would miss 15-and-a-half weeks with a bum elbow that seemed to be made worse by offseason surgery. Veteran backup Cliff Stoudt started 15 games in Bradshaw’s place and completed 197 of 381 passes for 2,583 yards, 12 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. His passer rating was 60.6.

Ouch.

Stoudt’s lone attempt at replacing a legend may have gone better had Stallworth been around more, but he was around less; Stallworth only appeared in four games in ’83 and caught just eight passes for 100 yards and no touchdowns.

Sweeney became the Steelers’ de facto No. 1 receiver and caught 39 passes for 577 yards and five touchdowns. One of those touchdowns occurred during Bradshaw’s only start against the Jets at Shea Stadium in Week 15 (the final Jets game at that venue). The 10-yard score in the second quarter that gave Pittsburgh a 14-0 lead was the last pass of Bradshaw’s NFL career. He heard a pop in his elbow and was relieved by Stoudt, who led the visitors to a 34-7 victory, a 10th win and an AFC Central crown. Sweeney helped to put the game away, and the division on ice, when he caught an 18-yard touchdown from Stoudt in the fourth quarter.

Who else caught passes for those ’83 Steelers? Tight end Bennie Cunningham was the second-leading receiver with 35 receptions for 442 yards and three scores. Running back Franco Harris caught 34 passes for 278 yards and two touchdowns. Fellow running back Walter Abercrombie was actually third on the team in receiving yards when he tallied 391 on 26 catches. Greg Hawthorne, a running back turned receiver, was fourth on the team with 300 receiving yards on 19 receptions.

What about the rookie class of receivers? Garrity led the way with 19 catches for 279 yards and a touchdown pass from Bradshaw in the win over the Jets–the penultimate TD of the Blond Bomber’s career. Capers added 10 catches for 185 yards and a score, while Skansi only registered three receptions for 39 yards.

Ironically, Skansi would go on to have the most productive career of any of those ’83 rookie wideouts; Skansi’s 166 career receptions–including 163 in eight years in Seattle–more than doubled Garrity’s 82 and were over three times as many as the 51 Capers collected during his four years in the league.

Skansi, who also totaled 1950 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns over nine seasons, even topped Sweeney’s career stat line. In nine seasons in the NFL, Sweeney caught 113 passes for 1775 yards and seven touchdowns. He only posted more than 20 catches one other time–21 in 1986–and was out of the league after tallying 16 receptions for 217 yards in 1987.

But there was that time Calvin Sweeney was the best the Steelers could do at the wideout position for a whole season, and he not only led them in receptions, but he helped guide them to a division title.

Will the Van Jeffersons and Scotty Millers of the world help Pittsburgh pull off the same feat in 2024? Probably not, but you never know.