Another new series we’re adding to Steelers Depot throughout the offseason. One that’s been on my mind for a little while. These won’t mean too much but these articles will just be cool plays history throughout the Pittsburgh Steelers’ history. Not all-time great moments, not ones that show up on a season-end highlight reel, the outcome of the game doesn’t matter. Just fun little moments that made me smile watching them back.
Troy Edwards was a first-round miss, the Steelers desperate and reaching for a receiver and taking Edwards 13th overall in the 1999 NFL Draft. In fact, we made a whole video on Edwards’ career and why things didn’t work out in Pittsburgh.
But if there’s a highlight of his career, it might’ve come in 2001. And it was one of the wildest touchdowns that Pittsburgh’s registered this century.
In the 2001 regular-season finale, a game in which Pittsburgh sat several key starters (including a rare inactive for OG Alan Faneca), the Steelers overcame a first quarter deficit by scoring 28 unanswered to beat up on the Browns 28-7. They took the lead in one heck of a way.
On the second half kickoff, Kris Brown booted a short pooch to the Browns’ 15-yard line where returner Ben Gay attempted to field it. The weather wasn’t great, snowy, windy, and chilly, and he muffed the try. He regrouped and picked the ball up just inside his 20 before getting upfield and had a little bit of room to run with. Gay was spun around and then stripped of the football by reserve WR and special teamer Lenzie Jackson.
The ball popped up and rolled forward, grabbed by Edwards, who sprinted to the end zone. He stepped out of a diving tackle and waltzed into the end zone, a 32-yard score the other way.
Here’s the replay look of it.
Pittsburgh took a 14-7 lead to start the third quarter. They bookended that by closing out the quarter with a 40-yard Bobby Shaw touchdown – the wide receiver nostalgia in this post is off the charts – followed by an R.J. Bowers fourth-quarter touchdown to finish the Browns off.
The kick return-fumble-defensive touchdown is among the rarest in the NFL. It doesn’t happen on punts because punts that are fumbled aren’t allowed to be returned; the ball is placed wherever the ball is recovered. Pro Football Reference’s Game Play Finder gives us the ability to look up these moments, though their data seems to be a bit incomplete, not even including Edwards’ touchdown in my search.
But according to them, the last such play that didn’t happen in the game’s final moments occurred in 2016 when the Kansas City Chiefs scooped and scored against the New York Jets. There’s no other Steelers examples listed there.
Edwards career has largely been forgotten and remembered, it’s usually for the wrong reasons. But we’ll put all that aside to remember this zany moment that might not be seen in Pittsburgh for another two decades.
