Tim Benz: A season-opening trend to watch that may decide Steelers-49ers outcome

When it comes to season-opening opponents, beginning the 2023 campaign against the San Francisco 49ers will continue a theme for the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s the third straight year that Mike Tomlin’s crew will open their campaign against a reigning division champion.

The 49ers won the NFC West in 2022. Last year, the Steelers escaped Cincinnati with a 23-20 overtime win in Week 1 after the Bengals claimed the AFC North crown the year before. And in 2021, the Steelers started their season in Buffalo by beating the defending AFC East champion Bills, 23-16.

Another connecting thread between those two season-opening wins that the Steelers wouldn’t mind replicating would be making another big play on special teams.

Or, at least avoiding a catastrophically bad one.

If you look back at the last two season openers, special teams have played a big role in the story of the game for the Steelers — for better or worse.

The 2021 season began with the Bills’ Isaiah McKenzie returning the opening kickoff 75 yards to the Steelers’ 24-yard line. That resulted in a field goal. But the Steelers’ Miles Killebrew blocked a punt that resulted in a touchdown by Ulysees Gilbert III that gave the Steelers a 20-10 lead in the fourth quarter.

BLOCK. THAT. KICK. #HereWeGo

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— NFL (@NFL) September 12, 2021

Kicker Chris Boswell also made all three of his field-goal attempts.

Last year in Cincinnati, Minkah Fitzpatrick blocked a PAT attempt to force overtime at 20-20.

BLOCKED. WHAT A GAME.@minkfitz_21 said NOPE!

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????: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/pHwdeoOMZE pic.twitter.com/wBzxQPQiH5

— NFL (@NFL) September 11, 2022

That was, in part, the result of a slow snap from Cincinnati’s backup long snapper Mitchell Wilcox. He was thrust into action because Clark Harris suffered an arm injury earlier in the game. Wilcox also had a high snap on a field-goal attempt in overtime, leading to a missed kick by Evan McPherson to keep the game alive. It eventually ended on a 53-yard field goal from Boswell, who rebounded from a kick that “kabongged” off an upright earlier in overtime.

So don’t be shocked if special teams somehow play a big role in this opener, too.

The day before his release by the Steelers, tight end Zach Gentry raised a good point about why special teams tend to play as much of a factor as it does in opening games.

“A lot of times early in the season there’s a bunch of young guys on those special teams that either just got drafted or are undrafted free agents. They haven’t played in a regular-season game. They’re stepping into the fire. So special teams have been huge in those opening games for the last couple of years,” Gentry said.

That’s a point Tomlin echoed on Tuesday.

“When you’re talking ‘splash,’ particularly early in the year in special teams, it’s more about negligence than it is top-flight performance,” Tomlin said. “Although we’ve had some plays early in the season in special teams, it’s probably less about what we’re doing and maybe about what our opponents aren’t doing.”

Tomlin is turning the lens on his own unit, making sure it isn’t his team that’s busting an assignment on special teams that results in a game-altering mistake. That’s been a point of emphasis throughout camp for special teams coordinator Danny Smith because core members Robert Spillane, Marcus Allen, Derek Watt, Benny Snell and Arthur Maulet are all gone from last year’s roster.

“Because we have a lot of guys in that phase that are new, our focus is on being sound and doing things appropriately — knowing that if we do those things, if we do ordinary things routinely well, then we’re going to be opportunistic,” Tomlin continued. “And those types of plays have an opportunity to happen when we do so.”

The Steelers won’t be alone at Acrisure Stadium when it comes to new faces on special teams. Former Steeler Ray-Ray McCloud was expected to miss up to two months with a wrist injury for the Niners. But he may have a shot at playing. He was San Francisco’s primary return man last year. Another ex-Steeler, Matthew Wright, may be pressed into service as the kicker since Jake Moody is dealing with a quad injury.

While Wright did a nice job on field goals during his time subbing in for Boswell in 2020 and ’22, he doesn’t have a particularly strong leg for kickoffs, so that could come into play for the Steelers return units on Sunday.

In the preseason, things have gone well for the Steelers on special teams, despite the restructured groups on kicks and returns.

Calvin Austin III had punt returns of 54 and 21 yards. The punters (Pressley Harvin III, Braden Mann) and punt coverage units managed to down a total of 11 punts inside the 20 over the three games. The kickers (Boswell, B.T. Potter) were 14 of 15 on place kicks.

“It really starts in the meeting room,” veteran special teams contributor Miles Boykin said last week. “Make sure that (young players) feel that urgency. Because once the game comes, it’s no longer ‘talking about,’ you just gotta go out there and do it. They’ve got to feel a sense of urgency from the moment we step onto the field.”

As recent history has indicated, that urgency has been heightened in Week 1 for the Steelers.

The Niners are slight 2.5-point favorites. So the Steelers are yet again underdogs to start the year against a team that made a playoff push the previous season.

Perhaps with some “splash” from their special teams — or “negligence” from San Francisco’s — they can make it three upsets in a row.

Listen: Tim Benz and Joe Rutter preview Steelers-49ers after the Mike Tomlin Press conference