{"id":352000,"date":"2025-09-08T16:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/352000\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T16:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T16:24:12","slug":"steelers-surprised-everyone-with-roles-of-kenneth-gainwell-ben-skowronek-in-week-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/352000\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers surprised everyone with roles of Kenneth Gainwell, Ben Skowronek in Week 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers surprised everyone with roles of Kenneth Gainwell, Ben Skowronek in Week 1<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

Kenneth Gainwell and Ben Skowronek were two of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ biggest stars on Sunday in their 34-32 Week 1 win over the New York Jets.<\/p>\n

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Who saw that coming?<\/p>\n

Skowronek, mostly a special teams player but also a wide receiver, came to Pittsburgh last season and appeared in 10 games while battling some injuries.<\/p>\n

Gainwell is new to town this season, having joined from the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. He, too, plays on special teams in addition to his running back time.<\/p>\n

Both were heroes in Sunday’s thrilling win.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0‘Have a little faith’: How Bills pulled off unbelievable comeback to stun Ravens<\/a><\/p>\n

Gainwell’s role was the most surprising. He had 10 touches despite being expected to be the offense’s RB3. Jaylen Warren got 12 touches, and rookie Kaleb Johnson only had one.<\/p>\n

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Offensively, Skowronek was in blocking on a number of plays. But he had his biggest moment when he reeled in Aaron Rodgers’ first Pittsburgh TD, a 22-yarder.<\/p>\n

And then the duo combined on special teams.<\/p>\n

Taking part in kick coverage, Gainwell got to the Jets’ return man first and dove in to punch the ball loose. Skowronek fell on it, a crucial turnover and swing of momentum.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Jerry Jeudy refused to lateral on final play, instead conveniently hit his betting over<\/a><\/p>\n

“The wide receiver and special teamer (Skowronek), who was nicknamed “Dirtbag” by offensive coordinator Arthur Smith for his affinity for doing the dirty work, caught Rodgers’ first touchdown as a Steeler and was a key part of the momentum-swinging fourth-quarter play to recover a fumble forced by\u00a0Kenneth Gainwell\u00a0on kickoff coverage,” wrote ESPN’s Brooke Pryor<\/a>. “The 2021 seventh-round pick by the Rams became fast friends with Rodgers during the offseason, and their connection immediately translated to the field.”<\/p>\n

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Every good team needs under-the-radar contributors like Gainwell and Skowronek. It’s just that, on Sunday, they put themselves on the very notable radar, and the Steelers needed every bit of their contributions.<\/p>\n

MORE NFL NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers surprised everyone with roles of Kenneth Gainwell, Ben Skowronek in Week 1 originally appeared on The Sporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[1586,5429,7,1736,2827,274,14451,255,6,109,520,57,2360,424,169,2948,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-352000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-ben-skowronek","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jaylen-warren","12":"tag-jerry-jeudy","13":"tag-kaleb-johnson","14":"tag-kenneth-gainwell","15":"tag-new-york-jets","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","18":"tag-pittsburgh","19":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","20":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","21":"tag-rams","22":"tag-ravens","23":"tag-special-teams","24":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115169608759416288","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}