Steelers' Bizarre Week 1 Disaster Had A Surprising Hero Behind The Chaos

The Pittsburgh Steelers escaped Week 1 with a victory and enough teaching tape to occupy the coaching staff for several days. Most mistakes can be diagnosed conventionally: a missed block, a bad read or somebody arriving late to an assignment. One sequence before halftime was considerably stranger. Almost nothing looked right once the ball started moving, and Pittsburgh needed somebody in the middle of the confusion to recognize that the original plan was already dead.

That somebody was Cameron Johnston. Pittsburgh's attempted 62-yard field goal against the Atlanta Falcons disintegrated after a communication breakdown led to the ball being snapped when the operation was not prepared to execute the kick. Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman revealed Monday that the problem involved communication within the unit and confusion surrounding the play clock, but he praised Johnston for immediately moving deep into Pittsburgh's contingency plan once everything went wrong.

“There was some different viewpoints on certain things and, you know, fortunately Cam did a great job and went to probably the fourth thing on our list in those situations of what has to happen. But [he] did a great job trying to keep a bad play from becoming a worse play, getting to the edge and throwing the incompletion and, you know, sadly taking a hit for it. But those are the plays that you don’t ever want to be part of,” Crossman said.

The television view made the whole thing look like a field-goal unit collectively forgetting a field goal was supposed to happen. Long snapper Christian Kuntz sent the football backward while Chris Boswell was not in position to begin his kicking motion. Johnston suddenly had possession of a football that was never going to reach the ground for its intended purpose. That is where the play changed from a communication disaster into an improvisation drill.

Johnston did not freeze, desperately attempt to place the football anyway or allow the broken operation to turn into a loose ball. He moved toward the edge, created enough space to get rid of it and accepted the incompletion. Pittsburgh turned the football over on downs, but Atlanta did not inherit an even better situation because the holder panicked after everything around him had already collapsed.

Crossman describing Johnston's reaction as roughly the fourth option on Pittsburgh's emergency list offers an interesting glimpse into how extensively special teams units prepare for plays nobody actually wants to run. The normal operation is obvious: Kuntz snaps, Johnston places and Boswell kicks. Once that sequence becomes impossible, everyone involved has to understand what comes next without spending several seconds holding a conference.

That work usually stays invisible because successful specialists are supposed to make their jobs look boring. Pittsburgh spent the offseason excited about Johnston's ability to change field position with his leg, and his return to the Steelers was primarily discussed through punting. Nobody was designing his role around scrambling toward the sideline during an aborted field goal. Week 1 found a use for that preparation anyway.

The sequence should still bother Pittsburgh. Johnston handling the emergency correctly does not make the original communication breakdown acceptable. A veteran operation involving an established kicker, punter/holder and long snapper should not reach the point where the holder needs Option No. 4 because the ball arrived before everyone was operating from the same understanding.

Crossman's explanation also shows why simply blaming the snap misses part of the problem. He referenced multiple communication issues and the play clock rather than isolating one person as the cause. Special teams depends on synchronized timing more than almost any phase. Once the clock situation changed and different people interpreted what needed to happen differently, a routine process became anything but routine.

Fortunately for Pittsburgh, the mistake did not become seven points in the other direction. Atlanta failed to score before halftime, allowing the Steelers to enter the locker room with their lead intact. Pittsburgh eventually won 20-13, making the busted operation something the coaching staff can correct without attaching it to a loss.

Johnston's broader afternoon was far more conventional. He punted four times for 194 yards, averaged 48.5 yards per attempt and placed two inside Atlanta's 20-yard line. The field-goal chaos officially left him with the far stranger statistic of one passing attempt and zero completions.

Steelers Cannot Need Johnston's Emergency Plan Again

There is a difference between preparing for chaos and accepting it. Pittsburgh should be glad Johnston understood exactly what to do once the field-goal attempt broke down. His decision prevented confusion from turning into a fumble, a larger loss or another unnecessary mistake. That awareness is part of why specialists rehearse ugly scenarios even though everyone hopes those pages of the playbook collect dust. The real correction has to happen earlier.

Crossman's unit needs the play-clock communication, snap operation and timing cleaned up enough that Johnston never reaches the fourth answer again. Boswell has the leg to make Pittsburgh unusually aggressive from long distance, but that weapon only matters if the operation gives him an opportunity to actually swing it.

Week 1 produced one of the strangest special teams snaps Pittsburgh will have all season. Johnston deserves credit for knowing what to do after it became a mess. The Steelers' goal now should be making sure nobody ever gets to see how far down the contingency list Option No. 5 goes.

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