Omar Khan has made big changes to the Pittsburgh Steelers roster. Defensively, there were big overhauls at inside linebacker and changes in the secondary. The offensive line has been fine-tuned and bolstered and a solid draft haul has injected a youth movement on both sides of the ball.
But perhaps the biggest change has come on special teams. The Steelers rid themselves of several core special teamers last season, something Mike Tomlin admitted during his Tuesday press conference.
“We’re going through a transition in that phase of our team if you will,” he said. “Arthur Maulet, Robert Spillane, Derek Watt, Marcus Allen, guys like that who filled up our tackle sheet on special teams a year ago are no longer here.”
Nowhere has Pittsburgh lost as many snaps as it did on its “teams” unit. It’s a point we argued back in January, well before free agency, but something we saw coming. There was going to be plenty of turnover on Danny Smith’s unit. At the time, here’s what we wrote.
“Love it or not but the Steelers always like to have a couple of core special teamers on the back end of their roster. Guys who don’t contribute much, if at all, on their side of the ball but focus on running downs kicks and punts and blocking in the return game. It’s possible Pittsburgh has to entirely restack that deck this off-season.”
Restack they did. Out with the old, in with the new. But this group doesn’t seem to be a bunch of 1:1 replacements. Sure, there are still a couple of core specialists, WR Miles Boykin and S Miles Killebrew, guys who technically play on one side of the ball but are 90 percent here for their special teams value. But the new additions and the bottom of the Steelers’ roster has more versatility and promise on their side of the ball.
WR Gunner Olszewski made the team as the sixth wide receiver in part because of his special teams value, the top backup as the team’s kick and punt returner. But he offers more on offense than a pure special teamer, able to play in the slot, be part of the team’s pre-snap motion. He got the edge over TE Zach Gentry likely because he’s more of an all-around threat.
RB Anthony McFarland Jr. made the team despite a lack of special teams value, an average kick returner at best, though he’ll get the nod there. Pittsburgh likes his speed and his pass-catching ability, opting to keep him over a Benny Snell Jr. type, a core special teams player.
Pittsburgh went heavy on the defensive line, opting to keep talent there over an extra linebacker who could run down kicks and punts. There is no No. 4 pure special teams player at outside linebacker like there’s been with Anthony Chickillo, Jamir Jones, or Derrek Tuszka. Nick Herbig will play on special teams but he’ll make a defensive impact, too. At inside linebacker, Mark Robinson doesn’t have an immediate path to playing time but has talent and potential to be more than a Tyler Matakevich running down kicks and punts, reaching his ceiling the second he stepped into the NFL.
In the secondary, Pittsburgh loaded up on corner without a critical eye towards special teams. They’ll have guys who play there, James Pierre and Elijah Riley, but they loaded up on guys who could also play cornerback in Chandon Sullivan and Desmond King II.
It’s not to say this approach is inherently good or bad. There are pros and cons. No one takes the value of pure special teamers as seriously as me, everyone dogs them until their team allows a long return, but it’s a shift in the roster. Boykin and Killebrew are the only true guys on this roster. Last year, there were tons of them: Benny Snell Jr., Marcus Allen, Derek Watt, along with Boykin and Killebrew.
Maybe that shift wasn’t intentional. Maybe it’s just the changing of the guard. Every team cycles through its specialists every few years as guys get older and too expensive to keep. Some players currently on this roster will settle into those special teams roles. But under Khan, Pittsburgh has more flexibility and perhaps a bit more of an eye on offensive/defensive value than it has in the past.
