The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped a winnable game against the 2-8 Cleveland Browns, and it all came down to the final few minutes, as it often does for AFC North divisional games. The Steelers were in prime position to complete a fourth-quarter comeback. They had scored a touchdown with roughly six minutes remaining to take the lead and then intercepted Jameis Winston. After the offense failed to hold up its end of the bargain, Corliss Waitman made matters worse with his—by far—worst punt of the season.
Below is a video of the punt by MrMatthew CFB on X.
Waitman’s previous worst was a 34-yard punt against the Washington Commanders from the Steelers’ own 8-yard line. This one? A 15-yard shank from the Steelers’ 30. It gave the Browns the ball back at the Pittsburgh 45-yard line. Clinging to a one-point lead, that was the worst-case scenario for the Steelers.
It was so shanked that it initially looked as if somebody may have gotten a hand on it. That wasn’t the case. It just came off the side of his foot and traveled a measly 15 yards sideways before going out of bounds.
The Steelers had been thriving all season on winning in all three phases. This end-of-game meltdown was a three-phase failure. The offense couldn’t kill enough clock or extend the lead, special teams shanked the punt, and then the defense couldn’t make the plays in the critical moments to protect the lead.
Waitman has done a pretty good job for the Steelers this season overall. He was signed after P Cameron Johnston suffered a season-ending knee injury. After multiple years of inconsistent punting from Pressley Harvin III, the Steelers attempted to fix that issue by signing Johnston. His excellent punting lasted one game before the injury.
Waitman has filled in admirably. He hasn’t been excellent, but he’s provided roughly league-average punting, which is an upgrade over Harvin in recent years. Waitman has 39 punts this season for 46.4 yards per punt. His shank dropped him five spots in the NFL rankings for yards per punt.
Mike Tomlin praised Waitman during The Mike Tomlin Show on the Steelers’ website yesterday, saying “he’s done an awesome job for us.”
Largely, that has been true, but boy did he pick an awful time to have his worst punt of the year, maybe even one of the worst punts of his career. To be fair, it wasn’t under an easy set of circumstances. It was his first punt of the game because the Steelers had been so aggressive on fourth downs and long field goals. That means he was standing around in the snow doing mostly nothing other than holding for Chris Boswell a few times for multiple hours.
Perhaps if the Steelers had just punted earlier in the game instead of failing on fourth down…but that’s neither here nor there.
