Without any more big plays on offense, Kaden Wetjen had only his return work on Friday—and he fumbled that part. Literally, as you know if you watched the Steelers’ second preseason game. On one punt, he bobbled the ball, and on another, he fumbled as a defender tackled him. Only the defense recovering the ball out of bounds saved him, but from an evaluation perspective, that’s a null point. Unless you ask special teams coordinator Danny Crossman, perhaps, who has been very supportive of his rookie return man.
“I think he’s doing some really good things. Again, ball security is [an issue] right now. He made some really good decisions in Week 1”, Crossman said of Wetjen, via the Steelers’ website. “Yesterday, maybe not as many good decisions, but the most important aspect is coming away every possession with the football. We were loose on one”.
I do question Crossman’s decision to even mention that the ball went out of bounds, because that has nothing to do with evaluating how Kaden Wetjen performed in that moment. It’s not as though he knew that he could fumble the ball there because it would be difficult to recover. He fumbled there in exactly the same manner he would have fumbled on any other spot on the field.
A fourth-round pick out of Iowa, Kaden Wetjen is trying to prove that he isn’t just a return specialist. He did very little else beyond kick and punt returns in college, but the Steelers saw enough to draft him early on Day 3. Now, if he proves to be very good at that, fine. But right now, there isn’t a lot that jumps out to go on. Not so if you ask Crossman, though.
“We were really close on a couple of possibilities of some big plays in the punt return game. We lost leverage on one guy that kept it from being a big play”, he insisted, chiefly referring to Wetjen. Max Hurleman also did some returns. “We had a guy that did a great job early in the down, sort of let his guy be, and at the end of the play ends up sort of in the path of the returner where if he would have stayed with his guy, there was a big crease there. We had to avoid our own player”.
Over three years at Iowa, Kaden Wetjen averaged 27.5 yards on kick returns and 17.7 yards on punt returns. He scored six return touchdowns in all, four on punt returns, including four combined last season. On 21 punt returns in 2025, Wetjen gained 563 yards, averaging 26.8 yards with 3 touchdowns.
Those are just silly numbers, especially given he averaged 12.6 yards on 26 punt returns a year earlier. Obviously, a trio of touchdowns is going to skew the average. Thus far in Pittsburgh, Wetjen hasn’t looked all that dangerous. But Danny Crossman keeps saying it’s the blocking. How much different will it look in the regular season—assuming we see Wetjen in the regular season?