Following each game in the 2025 Pittsburgh Steelers season, I will highlight the event, or string of events, in the game that was the turning point. Not all turning points will be earth-shattering but are meant to give a unique look at how we arrived at the outcome of the game, one that may be hard to see during the live watch.
The Pittsburgh Steelers chose Corliss Waitman over Cameron Johnston after a training camp battle, but that decision hasn’t exactly paid off this year. Waitman has been just as inconsistent as Pressley Harvin III previously was, and he always seems to have an untimely mistake that puts the Steelers in a tough situation. That wasn’t the case against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, having one of his best punts of the season at a critical juncture of the game.
The Steelers’ final possession burned two of the Ravens’ timeouts, but that set up a Waitman punt from his own end zone. Giving the ball back to a two-time league MVP with a five-point deficit and just under two minutes with timeout remaining is daunting. Waitman has a history of shanking punts in these moments. This time, he boomed it 53 yards to the Ravens’ 36, and a holding penalty backed them up 10 more yards to completely flip the field.
Not only did Waitman boom the punt, but he cleanly fielded an untimely low snap from Christian Kuntz to prevent a disaster.
If his punt went out of bounds, or if it was shorter with a fair catch by the Ravens, the holding wouldn’t have happened, and the Ravens may not have burned the two-minute warning timeout either. Instead, the Steelers couldn’t have scripted a better result.
Waitman wasn’t the only one to step up. DK Metcalf volunteered to fill in at gunner on this play. He occupied two blockers and helped free up Kuntz, Payton Wilson, and Carson Bruener to close in around the Ravens’ return man and make the tackle.
Credit to Kuntz for being the first man down the field. He looked like a guy trying to make up for his poor snap in real time. He missed the tackle but changed the course of the runner and prevented easy yards up the middle.
I would be remiss not to mention Ben Skowronek here, too. The reason Metcalf volunteered to play gunner is because Skowronek had an injured finger on the sideline. He played anyway and got held to back the Ravens up 10 more yards.
The Steelers have struggled to play complementary football this season. When the offense fell short, the special teams unit and the defense wouldn’t pick up the slack. In this case, special teams and the defense both stepped up to help secure a must-win game.
