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Seahawks Score Easy TD After Steelers Returner Makes Horrible Mistake on Kickoff

Liam McKeone

The Seahawks scored the easiest touchdown of the season thanks to a huge gaffe by Steelers returner Kaleb Johnson.
The Seahawks scored the easiest touchdown of the season thanks to a huge gaffe by Steelers returner Kaleb Johnson. / NFL on Fo
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The NFL introduced new kickoff rules (again) for the 2025 season. So far they have worked as intended— returns on kickoffs are up across the league, with Week 1 seeing a significant increase in returns. But the rules are still new enough that even the players don't seem to totally understand them. Which worked to the Seahawks' great favor in Week 2.

Visting Pittsburgh to play the Steelers, the Seahawks kicked a field goal to go up 17-14 early in the fourth quarter. Seattle kicked off to Steelers returner Kaleb Johnson. What should have been a simple sequence ended up leading to maybe the easiest touchdown of the entire season for the Seahawks.

They kicked the ball off to Johnson, who couldn't control the ball after it bounced. For some reason he let it glance off his fingers and roll to the back of the end zone. But the ball was still live. The Seahawks' coverage team sprinted past him to pounce on the ball, recovering it in bounds to score a TD. It was a ridiculous play that undoubtedly had Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin absolutely fuming.

The fact that he touched the ball makes Johnson's mistake particularly egregious. If he just let it roll past him and did not understand the Seahawks could recover the ball for points, that could be explained away by the introduction of the new and somewhat complicated rules the NFL introduced this offseason. But in every instance, whether on punts or otherwise, the ball becomes live when the returner touches it. Johnson's failure to recognize that cost his team a full touchdown and turned a small deficit into a two-score hole.

What a brutal sequence for the running back and his team in Pittsburgh.

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Liam McKeone
LIAM MCKEONE

Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.

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