3 reasons Steelers showed potential to be special in Week 1

Special teams are important, and Steelers have that in spades.

As mentioned, the Steelers are going to have to be able to gut out hard-fought seemingly messy games this season with the hardest schedule in the league.

One of the biggest winning factors in close games like this is special teams’ play. We can start off with the blocked punt by Miles Killebrew, which was scooped up and ran back for a touchdown by Ulysses Gilbert.

https://twitter.com/steelers/status/1437138931095687172

This is a well-coached special teams unit, so hats off to Danny Smith. Pittsburgh ran a beautiful stunt on the line with three defenders, and one of them was safety Miles Killebrew. The coordination was a thing of beauty and it resulted in a blocked punt.

This wasn’t the only great thing special teams provided. Chris Bowell has gone from the “Wizard of Boz” to “Chris the consistent” as he was 3-of-3 from field-goal range while tacking on another two extra points for a perfect game from him.

Meanwhile, rookie punting sensation Pressley Harvin III had a good day himself. He had five punts combining for over 200 yards while pinning the Bills offense inside the 20-yard line twice. As a rookie to come into a place as rowdy as Buffalo, for your first official start as a punter or kicker and to perform like that is rather impressive.

Pittsburgh has a young offense. That side of the ball is very unproven. Yet, the Steelers showed that they have good enough units on defense and special teams to help compensate for that in Week 1. New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has won a lot of games with those two phases of the game, while his former quarterback, Tom Brady, had less to work with on offense

And it looks like Mike Tomlin and crew may be able to help Ben Roethlisberger in the same fashion.