Steelers Falcons
Steelers Falcons
The Pittsburgh Steelers played their first game of the season on Sunday and earned a 20-13 win over the Atlanta Falcons. Many members of the Steelers’ coaching staff made their debut in the matchup, including Danny Crossman.
He’s the new special teams coordinator, and his unit had an up-and-down day on Sunday. The return game had some nice moments, and Chris Boswell made two field goals. However, there was also a botched play and some poor tackling in kick coverage. The final factor particularly frustrated Crossman.
“You know, it wasn’t as good as we need to be. We had some mishaps from a couple of people, and we missed a couple of tackles. But that’s gonna happen, especially in the first game, in my opinion. And watching around the league yesterday when I got home, it looked like a couple other teams were popping some things,” Crossman said Monday via Steelers.com. “Some of those things are gonna happen. But, you gotta get ’em cleaned up, and you gotta clean up stuff. Biggest thing is when we’re in position, we gotta tackle.”
The Steelers’ special teams were a bit rocky against the Falcons. The most obvious error was the botched field goal attempt near the end of the first half. But Crossman is right to have qualms about the kick coverage as well.
The Steelers were outclassed on both kick and punt returns. Atlanta returned three punts, with Zachariah Branch taking all three of them for 33 combined yards. Kaden Wetjen returned two punts for just 13 yards for Pittsburgh. The discrepancy was greater on kickoffs.
Eli Heidenreich returned two kicks for 47 yards, and Kaden Wetjen returned one for 27. That’s 74 yards on three returns, which isn’t bad. But on the other side, the Steelers struggled to cover kicks. Atlanta had 123 yards on four kickoff returns, averaging 30.8. Brian Robinson Jr. had 64 yards on two returns, one for 40. And all of those numbers don’t include a 64-yard return from Branch, which was called back due to a penalty.
It’s been just one game, and Crossman is correct that the Steelers weren’t the only team struggling to cover kicks in Week 1. But especially as the offense figures things out, field position is very important in these games. The Steelers need to be much better in this regard, and Crossman recognizes that.