{"id":56999,"date":"2025-12-10T06:07:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T06:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56999\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T06:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T06:07:06","slug":"film-room-pittsburgh-found-its-next-special-teams-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/56999\/","title":{"rendered":"Film Room: Pittsburgh Found Its Next Special Teams Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers have found their next special teams ace. A team that has had one for years and decades \u2013 John Fiala of the late 90s, Clint Kreidwalt, Sean Morey, and Chidi Iwuoma of the mid-2000s, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Tyler Matakevich of the mid-late 2010s, and Miles Killebrew of the 2020s, Carson Bruener is carrying that torch into 2025 and beyond.<\/p>\n

A seventh-round pick who made the roster for his \u2018teams value,<\/a> he\u2019s been putting that role to good use. Though Bruener has logged just one defensive snap this season, he\u2019s quickly emerged as a core special teamer. His 220 special teams snaps rank fifth on the team and his 14 tackles on that unit is an excellent number.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s showing against Baltimore was his marquee performance to date. Three special teams tackles, all on kick coverage, with high-end reps. Twice, he bowled over his would-be Ravens\u2019 blocker en route to the returner.<\/p>\n

On this rep, he is aligned at R2, fourth-in from the left. No. 39 dies a slow death as Bruener runs over him while keying the returner. Baltimore\u2019s runback is clunky with the returner ahead of his up-man, losing a blocker in the process, and Bruener keeps him lateral and pinned to the sideline. Sebastian Castro and Jabrill Peppers also do nice jobs here to run him out of bounds.<\/p>\n

Very similar here. Bruener again runs through his blocker even more forcefully this time, and the returner has nowhere to go. Bruener is no longer blocked and in position to make the tackle. He finishes this play off himself.<\/p>\n

His final tackle was an assist and not solo. A little less impressive. Still, it was a solid rep shedding the block of TE Charlie Kolar, squaring up the returner, and combining with Peppers to make the stop.<\/p>\n

The tackles themselves don\u2019t tell the whole story. Bruener\u2019s three stops put the Ravens at: their 26, 26, and 29 yard line. That\u2019s six to nine yards inside of where a touchback would come out to the 35 yard line. Hidden yardage that works in Pittsburgh\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

An underrated part of Omar Khan\/Andy Weidl\u2019s first two draft classes<\/a> are the seventh round hits. In 2023, there was OL Spencer Anderson. In 2025, Bruener. Two serious contributors to the roster.<\/p>\n

Kick and punt coverage are the first line of defense. It must be strong. The Steelers have been excellent here, and Bruener looks like a stud in the making. It wouldn\u2019t be surprising he became a special teams captain in 2026 and held the job for the next seven years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers have found their next special teams ace. A team that has had one for years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[31379,73,75,74,1833],"class_list":["post-56999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-carson-bruener","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\/56999","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=56999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}