Steelers positional grades are mostly disappointing for the 2021 season

Steelers special teams: B+

Pittsburgh’s special teams coverage wasn’t always great this year, but it’s hard to be upset with this unit with the play we got out of our kicker. While Chris Boswell didn’t make first or second-team All-Pro and wasn’t selected to the Pro Bowl, he might have been the third-best kicker in the NFL this year behind the legendary Justin Tucker and Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson.

Boswell converted 90 percent of his kicks this season with several coming in crunch time to help secure the victory for the Steelers. But as good as Boswell was, Pressly Harvin was pretty bad at times as Pittsburgh’s punter.

After spending draft capital on a punter, fans deservingly expected more. While Harvin would occasionally beam the ball down the field, he was very inconsistent and often gave the opposing team great field position.

However, the kicker is the most important part of special teams, so I weighted Boswell’s spectacular performance more heavily. Steelers have one of the best kickers in the game, and we hope he offers us another great season in 2022.

There wasn’t a lot to get excited about with these positional groups in 2021. Outside of a few spectacular individual performances (namely T.J. Watt), the Steelers still need to add a lot of talent to this team before they can be considered legitimate competitors again.