{"id":16958,"date":"2025-10-27T20:52:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16958\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T20:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:52:06","slug":"the-steelers-have-a-new-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/16958\/","title":{"rendered":"The Steelers Have A New Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahead of Sunday night\u2019s game against the Green Bay Packers, the Pittsburgh Steelers unveiled a new captain. Inside linebacker Payton Wilson is replacing Miles Killebrew as the team\u2019s special teams captain, receiving the honor after Killebrew suffered a season-ending knee injury<\/a> in Week 6.<\/p>\n

Likely due to the short week, the Steelers didn\u2019t have an official special teams captain in Week 7 against the Cincinnati Bengals. But Wilson joined QB Aaron Rodgers, DL Cam Heyward, and EDGE T.J. Watt for the coin toss ahead of yesterday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters Monday, Wilson reacted to the \u2018C\u2019 on his jersey.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Wednesday team meeting, they told us in the team meeting,\u201d Wilson said via the team website.<\/a> \u201cSo, just really honored about that. Thanks to Coach Tomlin. Thanks to Miles for recommending me. He\u2019s a great leader. He\u2019s been a great role model, so just hopefully I can fill his role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before each season, the locker room votes on team captains. Because of the in-season injury, it appears no team-wide vote was held. Instead, Killebrew offered a recommendation to Tomlin.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh\u2019s starting inside linebacker, Wilson has also held a special teams role throughout the season. His snap count has increased in Killebrew\u2019s absence. Wilson logged 24 and 28 special teams snaps the past two weeks after seeing no more than 16 before Killebrew\u2019s injury. Throughout the season, Wilson has played on five different special teams units: kick return and coverage, punt return and coverage, and the field goal rush\/block team.<\/p>\n

Only in his second year, Wilson is ready to assume all the weight that comes with being a team captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would just say being a leader out there on teams,\u201d he said. \u201cMiles was the voice of everything on teams. I mean, everything we did. Miles broke the huddles down, ran our meetings. Sometimes, certain things like our Saturday punt meeting and things like that. Just taking that stuff over and being a voice in the room when we\u2019re struggling a little bit or something doesn\u2019t go our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh\u2019s special teams have largely been good this season. The coverage units have excelled since a rough first two games. Punter Corliss Waitman could set a record<\/a> for best gross average in Steelers\u2019 single-season history while K Chris Boswell continues to be the NFL\u2019s best kicker, making three field goals from 50-plus yards in last night\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

The Steelers had plenty of candidates to wear a \u2018C\u2019 on their chest. WR Ben Skowronek, TE Connor Heyward, CB James Pierre, and even rookie LB Carson Bruener could\u2019ve assumed it. But it says something that Wilson got the nod as a second-year player with plenty of responsibilities on his plate. Wilson will try to reach the rare feat Killebrew achieved, being a four-time special teams captain. Since 1998, only Killebrew and LB John Fiala have done so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of Sunday night\u2019s game against the Green Bay Packers, the Pittsburgh Steelers unveiled a new captain. Inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11862,9076,73,75,74,1833],"class_list":["post-16958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-miles-killebrew","tag-payton-wilson","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}