Pittsburgh Steelers WR Calvin Austin III does not have the football with which he caught his first touchdown, he recently revealed—and he has no idea where it is. While he did not express regret over it, he does have the balls from his other two scores.
A 2022 fourth-round pick, Calvin Austin III scored his first career touchdown in Week 3 of the 2023 season. QB Kenny Pickett connected with him on a deep shot, racing into the end zone for a 72-yard score. Basically, he was too excited to pay attention to or care about what happened after he scored. After all, the plan was that there would be more where that came from.
“If you watch the video, when I scored, like, I don’t know where I was”, Austin said on 92.9 ESPN recently about his first NFL touchdown with the Steelers. “It was just that moment. And I remember throwing the ball back and thinking in my head, ‘I really just scored, Sunday Night Football’. That’s what was going through my mind. And then I got on the sideline and somebody asked me and I was like, ‘Bro, I don’t even care, I’m gonna get another one’. That’s what I was thinking. I was like, ‘I’m gonna score again and save that one”.
That one play remains the clear highlight of Austin’s career, without an obvious second place. The Steelers tried to return to the same well a week or two later, ending with an interception instead. He only caught 16 more passes that year for 108 yards.
Austin had to wait 12 weeks before he found the end zone again, scoring on a rushing play. “The Bengals game later in the season, I kept that one, and my whole family was there and everything”, he said. He also has the ball from the touchdown he caught in the postseason loss to the Buffalo Bills.
But he does not have the ball from his first NFL touchdown, and who knows if anybody knows its location? The broadcast didn’t follow through long enough to show what he did with the ball, but the All-22 does. Austin eventually tossed the ball out of his hand onto the ground, and who knows where it wound up.
Even though he doesn’t have the ball, it doesn’t change how incredibly exciting a moment it was. Austin will remember that play for the rest of his life, even without the souvenir, significant as it may be. And let’s be honest, he is in good company when it comes to players losing themselves in excitement.
Frankly, it is something that any player of any achievement has to learn, or at least most. Remember last year when T.J. Watt said he had to tell Nick Herbig to take in the moment after his strip-sack fumble recovery? Yeah, it happens. Does Herbig have that ball?
