Every week someone in the NFL ends up red-faced for not knowing the rules.
In Week 2, Steelers rookie returner Kaleb Johnson allowed a kickoff to roll into the end zone, where the Seattle Seahawks recovered for a touchdown that propelled them in a 31-17 victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday.
It appeared Johnson didn’t understand the ever-changing kickoff rules that make a football that lands in the landing zone a live ball that anyone can recover if the returner doesn’t corral it.
“Poor judgment by a young player,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said.
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t take a novice to make a rookie mistake.
In the Denver Broncos’ 29-28 loss at Indianapolis, a leverage penalty on a missed 60-yard field goal led to a successful do-over from 45 yards. Both coaches acknowledged Monday they made blunders in crunch time.
Broncos coach Sean Payton regrets being too aggressive in going after the 60-yarder that Spencer Shrader shanked, and Colts coach Shane Steichen wishes he had been more aggressive in his play calls on Indy’s final drive and gotten the ball closer for Shrader, who was true on his 45-yard do-over.
“My big regret flying home was that’s more for a closer field goal,” Payton said of the call in which Dondrea Tillman was supposed to leap but not push off his opponent. “That’s more for a gimme than a 60-yard attempt, and that’s on me.”
Less than 24 hours after defending his strategy of calling three consecutive inside runs in the final two minutes and settling for a 60-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds, Steichen acknowledged Monday he made a mistake.
“Going back through it, I probably should have been more aggressive,” Steichen said. “We’ve got a lot of faith in Spence to make a kick, but we don’t want to put him in that situation from that deep. We had three timeouts. We probably could have thrown the ball on second or third down to get it closer.”
Shrader, who has made all nine of his field goal attempts so far and is 14 for 14 in his young career, has never tried one longer than 48 yards. The longest field goal in Colts history was Dan Miller’s 58-yarder in December 1982, while the longest of the Indianapolis era was Matt Gay’s 57-yarder in November 2023. And the longest by a Colts player at Lucas Oil Stadium came from Adam Vinatieri, who twice made 55-yarders.
Steichen likely didn’t know that history when he was calling plays, but he didn’t want to give the ball back to Denver with time on the clock. So, after Denver called its final timeout with 1:44 to play, Steichen put the ball in Jonathan Taylor’s hands three straight times and Taylor was tackled for a 2-yard loss on the final carry.
Shrader missed badly from 60 yards but Tillman’s infraction gave the Colts another untimed down and Shrader nailed the do-over to give Indy its first 2-0 start since 2009 and send the Broncos home with big regrets over their blunder.
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With contributions from Sports Writer Michael Marot in Indianapolis.
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