WR Calvin Austin III had a big week for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their Week 8 win over the New York Giants, as he caught a touchdown pass and returned a punt for a touchdown. There’s a lot that goes into being a punt returner in the league that not everybody sees, and during an appearance on The Christian Kuntz Podcast, Austin talked about his process leading up to a return.
“Cam [Johnston] can tell me something, Danny [Smith] can tell me something, but it’s me back there. That’s when I go and look at film. I look at direction, the gunners,” Austin said. “On gameday, the whole time I’m standing up during the whole game because when defense is going, I may sit down for maybe the first snap, the first down, but beside that, I’m usually back to where I’m lining up because I usually want to start off 45 yards from the ball.”
He said that he’ll watch punters during pregame but at this point, doesn’t put too much stock into the distance, and he said that Darrel Young, Pittsburgh’s director of player development, is the one who tells him what direction the return will be.
“I would say pregame is where I watch them a lot, just to see how they’re hitting it, but pregame you can’t put too much emphasis on it. Because pregame, a lot of punters are booming it. With our rush, it’s different. They feel that. At this point now, I don’t pay any attention to that because when we get up there and rush, it’s completely different. So I usually give it a look in that time, and from that point, DY, he’s our player personnel guy, he’s the one who gives me what return it is, left, right, middle or block.”
While Young’s primary role is to help players in an off-field capacity, he’s close with Danny Smith dating back to the time they spent together in Washington, so it seems as if Young is helping Smith out with some special teams stuff. For Austin, it’s not just a matter of looking at the open space and running to it. He has to see the blocks develop and follow the play that’s called and what direction the return is going. The touchdown he scored last Monday came on a left return play, so even though he caught the ball in the middle of the field, he ran left and the blocks set up perfectly.
There’s a lot of work that goes into returning punts, and Austin is doing it while also pulling double duty as a receiver. It adds some extra tape study and a little more to his plate, but he’s excelled as a returner this season and last Monday was a big moment for him. It’s interesting to hear the process leading up to the game, and even during the game, that goes into moments like that, and we’ll see how Austin can build off his momentum going forward as Pittsburgh’s schedule gets a lot harder in the second half of the season.
