With Kaleb Johnson manning the Steelers’ kick returner role, he appears set up to break the team’s all-time record. While that’s more a reflection of the 17-game schedule and rule changes encouraging more returns, Week 1 showed the way. Especially if Pittsburgh’s defense struggles, making it all the easier.
In the Steelers’ season opener, Kaleb Johnson returned five kicks for 132 yards, a 26.4-yard average. He currently sits fifth in the league in total kick return yardage, though he is not among the leaders in return average. In fact, he recorded a long return of 29 yards, which ranks tied for the 25th-longest return in Week 1. He also fumbled on one of those kick returns, but I’ll chalk it up to rookie jitters for now.
Obviously, one hopes the Steelers don’t have Johnson returning five kicks per game. If you’re returning five kicks, that means you let the opposing team score at least four times. What you want to set is punt return records, not kick return records. But either way, there should be many more returns than in recent seasons.
Over the past couple of years, the NFL has radically reshaped the kick return. In fact, they have made it more like a punt, with the coverage team no longer receiving a running start. They line up close to the return team and may only advance once the ball is in play. After tweaking the touchback to move the ball to the 35 this year, we saw a dramatic increase in returns, over 70 percent.
Last season, for example, only two players in the entire league recorded at least 25 kick returns. This year, we may comfortably have 30-40 players hit that mark. And if Kaleb Johnson retains the kick return job all year, he should be among them.
Should he keep that post, Johnson would be in a good position to break the Steelers’ all-time single-season kick return yardage mark. Set by Stefan Logan in 2009, the current mark sits at 1,466 yards. Logan returned 55 kicks for a 26.7-yard average, not far off Johnson’s average.
Logan averaged about 3.5 returns per game, which seems reasonable for this season. He recorded at least 100 kick return yards in nine out of 16 games, but never more than 135. With Kaleb Johnson hitting 132 in Week 1, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Many teams might set new kick return yardage records this season.
Of course, it’s early goings under the new rule. Right now, teams are trying to avoid touchbacks, but perhaps they’ll find over time that it’s less risky than allowing returns. In theory, the new kick return setup is conducive to more breakaway returns, which nobody wants against them. And Kaleb Johnson had breakaway kick return potential while at Iowa.
