Special teams a major weakness for Steelers in win over Cowboys

The Pittsburgh Steelers special teams units were so bad during Sunday’s win at the Dallas Cowboys that it affected coach Mike Tomlin’s decision-making late.

“They were beating us to the punch pretty much for the better part of the day on special teams,” Tomlin said.

So when the Steelers had a chance to take an eight-point lead via a 33-yard field goal try with less than 50 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, Tomlin instead elected to go for it. An outside run by James Conner lost 4 yards, which meant the Cowboys ultimately had a shot to win the game while throwing into the end zone as time expired not long thereafter.

“Man, we had struggled so much with our (placekicking) group early in the game,” Tomlin said of his decision, “that I just didn’t feel good about it.”

.@TCrawford98 with the blocked PAT ?#PITvsDAL ? @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/4v9TbgCJib

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) November 8, 2020

Chris Boswell missed one extra-point try wide left. He had another one blocked. During a field-goal attempt in the waning moments of the first half, Dallas’ defenders induced a Steelers false start penalty.

The latter gaffe ended up a positive. Boswell made a 59-yarder following the infraction after he missed his kick from 54 yards as flags were flying and whistles bowing. But kicking was far from the only area of special-teams struggle Sunday for the Steelers:

COWBOYS WILD PUNT RETURN ?

(via @thecheckdown)pic.twitter.com/EXwzx6Yd93

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) November 8, 2020

• C.J. Goodwin had a 73-yard punt return in the second quarter on a designed laterally-thrown pass from Cedrick Wilson

• Rico Dowdle had a 64-yard kickoff return that was especially galling because Boswell had kicked off from midfield after a Dallas penalty.

• The Steelers first-team defense had to return the punt when Dallas snookered the Steelers into believing they were going for it from their own 30 on the first play of the second quarter. (Veteran cornerback Joe Haden made a fair catch).

“I had just seen enough of their dominance in ’teams,” Tomlin said in reference to his decision to forgo the field-goal try in the final minute.

“Just in general, they were getting after us. That (extra-point) block was easy, that guy (Tyrone Crawford) was standing in the backfield on two feet. That was a problem for us. We will get back in the lab and go through a week of corrections and fundamentals and make sure we are solid there, as opposed to running (another placekick try) in-game and run the risk of ‘double-thud’ (a block) again. I am not about that life.”

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