Mike McCarthy\u2019s yet to coach a single game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I\u2019ve already gotten one assumption about him wrong. He\u2019s showing more love to special teams than I expected.<\/p>\n
Shame on me for the assumption. I based the notion on two factors: Aaron Rodgers\u2019 2025 comments indicated McCarthy wasn\u2019t as gung-ho about special teams as Pittsburgh, and it was hard to match Mike Tomlin and the Steelers\u2019 gusto for the unit. Bill Cowher felt similarly, a special teamer during his playing days and briefly coaching it in the NFL.<\/a> Multiple roster spots were dedicated to effectively pure special teamers. For McCarthy, this is a high bar to match.<\/p>\n I believed that McCarthy\u2019s focus would be more on the offensive and defensive sides of the football. Based on the team\u2019s offseason moves, that thought couldn\u2019t be more wrong.<\/p>\n McCarthy hired two experienced special teams coaches. It\u2019s the first time Pittsburgh\u2019s had two such dedicated men on staff since 2012, the year before Danny Smith was hired. I\u2019m skeptical of the Danny Crossman hire, especially when it comes to improving Pittsburgh\u2019s punting.<\/a> But he\u2019s experienced and will work alongside Derius Swinton II, a former head assistant STs coach now serving as Crossman\u2019s assistant.<\/p>\n The players McCarthy brought in proved my assumption wrong. In free agency, the Steelers picked up RB Travis Homer. An eight-year player who has stuck almost exclusively due to special teams. His career special-teams snaps (1,303) nearly double his offensive output (655), and despite his running back label, he\u2019s carried the ball just seven times over the combined last three years.<\/p>\n He\u2019s made his mark on the coverage team by running down kicks and punts. An impressive 23 tackles since 2023, including ten of them last year. He could replace Miles Killebrew<\/a> as Pittsburgh\u2019s personal protector of the punt team, the \u201cquarterback\u201d responsible for identifying the rush, setting the protection, and telling the snapper to hike the football. Homer isn\u2019t guaranteed to make the 53, but his signing was all about adding special teams as a potential No. 3, something the team didn\u2019t have with Kaleb Johnson in 2025.<\/p>\n Pittsburgh\u2019s draft was even more revealing. Day Three was heavily dedicated to special teamers. Fourth-rounder Kaden Wetjen was the most obvious selection. A potent kick and punt returner with far less offensive value, he\u2019ll look to jumpstart a sleepy return unit that\u2019s put Pittsburgh at a real disadvantage the last two seasons. If he can replicate his 2025 production, he could be the reason why<\/a> the Steelers beat the Ravens this year.<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t the only one who could help. Fullback Riley Nowakowski, safety Robert Spears-Jennings, and running back\/receiver Eli Heidenreich all played plenty of special teams snaps over the course of their college careers, helping out as blockers and coverage players more than returns. Combined, the three logged 1,217 third-phase snaps in college. Nowakowski is a former linebacker, where hitting comes naturally. Spears-Jennings is a straight-line hitter. And Heidenreich is an all-out player.<\/p>\n The path for all three will come, at least in part, on special teams. All three have the resume to do it.<\/p>\n The roster construction is similar to what Mike Tomlin would\u2019ve done. Maybe even stronger. Would he have drafted a pure returner like Wetjen?<\/p>\n McCarthy\u2019s shown the offense and defense plenty of love. Pittsburgh continues to invest in the trenches. The receivers are better, the cornerback group is strong, and the roster overall seems stronger. Special teams haven\u2019t been ignored; in fact, they have the same emphasis of importance as in past decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike McCarthy\u2019s yet to coach a single game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but I\u2019ve already gotten one assumption…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[263923,78256,140989,3966,349,1321,263823,14357,99,69176,3795],"class_list":["post-635405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-eli-heidenreich","tag-kaden-wetjen","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-mike-tomlin","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-riley-nowakowski","tag-robert-spears-jennings","tag-sports","tag-travis-homer","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}