Growing up, most players dream of catching the game-winning touchdown. Or sacking the quarterback to secure victory. Don’t get it twisted, Pittsburgh Steelers S Miles Killebrew loves the plays he’s made on defense throughout his career, he’s a pick-six under his belt, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who takes more pride in special teams than him.
Joining the Arthur Moats Experience with Deke podcast yesterday, Killebrew said he’s loved playing on the “teams” unit since his high school days. In fact, it’s the reason why he received his lone scholarship offer to Southern Utah.
“They brought me in, and they offered me that scholarship because my first 10 plays on my highlight film were all kickoff,” Killebrew told the show. “They said they had never seen anything like it. They had never seen a player put special teams play as their highlights on their highlight film. And so they said, ‘We gotta get this guy in here.’ Listen, I love special teams. I’ve been loving it since high school.”
Unfortunately, we came up empty finding that highlight reel (and believe me, we tried). The best we can offer are the cut-ups Killebrew put together during his college career from his HUDL page, a fun look-back and reminder he was about twice the size of any other defensive back or wide receiver on the field.
For a player’s “sizzle reel,” the first handful plays are really the only ones that matter. They have to be your best plays that’ll grab the attention of a coach, who is going through dozens if not hundreds of tape and can’t watch an entire eight-minute cut-up. Killebrew took an interesting choice leading with special teams film and it clearly caught the right people’s attention.
A small-time recruit from Nevada, Southern Utah was the only school that showed enough interest to offer Killebrew a scholarship, giving him a full ride. He didn’t disappoint, starring there and becoming a first-team All-Big Sky selection in 2015. He parlayed that into attending the NFL Combine and becoming a fourth-round pick of the Detroit Lions in 2016, a team he admits he didn’t expect to be drafted by (for fun, here’s my scouting report on him coming out of college, which was about half-right). To date, he’s only the third Southern Utah player to ever be drafted and the school’s highest-ever selection.
Hitting free agency in 2021, he made his way to Pittsburgh, becoming a captain and standout ‘teamer. The best punt blocker in the league, he has four of them in three seasons with the Steelers, including two this year. He’s worthy of a Pro Bowl selection as a special teamer, though it remains to be seen if he’s well-known enough to get the nod. Regardless, he’s an asset to Pittsburgh and proof of what buying into your role, even if it’s not being the “star,” can do for your team and your football journey.
Catch the whole interview below.
