The best leaders aren’t the ones who chase the role, but the ones who naturally grow into it. And for someone as young as Payton Wilson, now in just his second NFL season, stepping in as the Steelers’ special teams captain after Miles Killebrew’s injury says everything about the trust he’s earned.
Killebrew explained why he recommended Wilson for captaincy via Chipped Ham and Football with Brian Batko on Post-Gazette Sports’ YouTube.
“Payton’s a leader,” Killebrew said. “No matter how old you are when you’re a leader and you have those abilities to look outside yourself and really do the hard things and encourage others to do that around you, that’s just what it is. And so I am super proud of him. I’m really excited to see his development. He’s someone that I’ve really enjoyed watching progress in this league, both from an on-the-field perspective and off the field.
“He’s someone who, he handles his business. He does what needs to be done. And I’m sure that guys feel comfortable going to him and talking to him about some things that might come up throughout the season. So I think it was a great move.”
Wilson’s second season hasn’t been without its challenges. He was meant to fill a three-down role at the start of the year next to Patrick Queen full time, but a shaky first few games forced the Steelers to reevaluate. Since then, he’s worked his way back and is now thriving in an expanded role.
Only Patrick Queen and Jalen Ramsey have played more total snaps this season than Wilson on the entire team. Including his 208 special teams snaps, Wilson has played 748 total snaps through 11 games. That’s 68 snaps a game of running around and wear and tear on the body.
Wilson is playing on all five special teams units, and that’s in addition to his 70 or 80 percent of the team’s defensive snaps in any given game.
Pittsburgh’s defense basically stopped playing dime defense this year because of how much belief they have in Wilson’s coverage abilities. They prefer to have him on the field in nickel so they don’t sacrifice too much run defense in subpackage football.
The team is getting plenty in return for how much they are putting him on the field. Wilson leads the team with 89 total tackles, including 55 solo tackles. The next closest player in solo tackles is Queen with 33. Queen is closer in solo tackles to the 15th player (Alex Highsmith) than he is to Wilson in that stat. In fact, Wilson is on pace for 137 combined tackles, which is just shy of James Farrior’s team record of 141. There’s a decent chance he could set a new franchise record.
That’s all what he does on the field, but he’s just as special off the field and in the meeting room as well.
“I know our team is better off with Payton Wilson leading that charge on the teams unit,” Killebrew said.
The Steelers hit one out of the park when they drafted Wilson in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft.
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