Steelers Dead Last in Key Statistic | Steelers Morning Rush
Welcome to Steelers Morning Rush, our new daily short-form podcast with Alan Saunders, giving a longer perspective on a single news topic surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers or the National Football League.
Today, it’s the play of the Steelers kickoff return unit. When the NFL made the change this offseason to its kickoff rules to emulate the XFL kickoff that we’ve seen all season, Omar Khan and Mike Tomlin wasted little time, signing Cordarrelle Patterson to a two-year contract that very day. Patterson is a four-time All-Pro kickoff returner, was a member of the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team, and has gone over 1,000 all-purpose yards in a season nine times. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t been working for the 32-year-old this season.
Of players with at least 10 kickoff returns, Patterson is dead last with a 21.8 yards per return average. The Steelers as a team are also 32nd in kickoff returns, even though fellow returner Jaylen Warren has done better than Patterson.
What went wrong and how can the Steelers fix it? Alan breaks it down.