Over the three-day Labor Day weekend, the Pittsburgh Steelers announced their team captains for the 2025 season.
On the offensive side of the ball, new Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers gets the nod. Defensively, linebacker TJ Watt and defensive tackle Cam Heyward take the honors. And on special teams, leader and backup safety Miles Killebrew serves.
There’s not a lot to read into about this list.
Heyward, even if some fans have turned on him over controversial contract negotiations, still has a ton of respect in that locker room. The 36-year-old has been a captain every year since 2015.
Watt and Killebrew only add to the consistency of the list. Both are now captains for the fourth straight season, and this is the fifth time in Watt’s career that he has received the honor.
Rodgers, even if he is new, is deserving of the role. This is the 15th time he has served as a team captain, and this kind of list is really only a story if your starting quarterback is not a captain.
However, with a mostly mundane list, Rodgers does add some intrigue. He represents the sixth offensive captain the team has had since 2021, with the holder of that spot being different every season.
With so much turnover, it got me thinking about some of the more random, forgotten team captains in Steelers history under Mike Tomlin. So here’s a list of some Steelers players you probably forgot were once voted captains.
Arnaz Battle, 2011
A former sixth round pick by the San Francisco 49ers back in 2003, Battle spent seven seasons on the west coast, with his best years coming in 2006 and 2007, when he put up back-to-back 600-yard receiving seasons. But by the end of the decade, Battle’s career had wound down to more of a special teams role. His final year in San Francisco only saw him record five catches for 40 yards.
Battle was excited to join a contending team in Pittsburgh when he signed with the Steelers in 2010. He was hoping he could carve out a bigger role on the offensive side of the ball, but his spot on the depth chart and a mostly healthy receiving core kept him limited. He was targeted twice with no catches in 15 games. But he did play a big role on special teams on a Steelers roster that went all the way to the Super Bowl that year.
The following season, Battle was named a special teams captain in just his second (and final) year with the team. He took over for linebacker Keyaron Fox, who was special teams captain for the two previous years.
Battle played ten games that season, suffering some injuries along the way but continuing work on special teams. He was released after the season, and did not play in the NFL again.
Chris Boswell, 2018
Boswell took over the kicking job midway through the 2015 season, stepping into the role vacated by an injured Shaun Suisham and a cut Josh Scobee. By the time the 2018 season rolled around, he had established himself as one of the better kickers in the league, and received another honor as well.
Coming off a Pro Bowl year, Boswell was named special teams captain, becoming the first kicker in four years to serve in that spot and taking over after there was no special teams captain in 2017.
“It means a lot,” Boswell said, per the team’s official press release that season. “It doesn’t change anything for me. I just have to show up and kick. That is really it. It says a lot that the guys voted me captain, but doesn’t change anything I do game to game, day to day. It’s good. It’s respect that can leave as fast as it got here. I just need to keep proving myself and keep stepping up whenever they need it.”
Unfortunately for Boswell, maybe the captaincy worked as a curse on him. The Wizard of Boz had career lows across the board, making only 89.6% of his extra point attempts and 65% of his field goals. He ranked dead last in the NFL in field goal percentage among kickers with at least 20 tries.
The fan base turned on him and the Steelers even brought in kicking competition, putting Boswell’s job at risk. The poor season also resulted in Boswell having to agree to push back the bonuses in his contract, or face being released.
Since that horrid year, Boswell had made 89% of his field goals, 96% of his point-after attempts, and has accounted for almost 700 points. Last season, he led the NFL in field goals made, at 41.
I don’t know superstitious Boswell is, but I have to assume he’s ok with not being named a team captain.
Derek Watt, 2021
The Steelers have a lengthy history of family ties on the roster, and the Watt family is no exception.
A few years after drafting TJ in 2017, the team brought in one of his brothers, Derek, reuniting the two in black and yellow. Watt played three total seasons and 46 games for the team, only attempting ten rushes for 22 yards and a touchdown.
The bulk of his work came in a special teams capacity, where in 2021, his teammates voted him captain of that unit. This season saw him play the highest amount of special teams snaps in any of his years as a Steeler, at 332 (68%).
It was a rarer honor that year, as only three players were named captains, marking the shortest captain list since 2017 and only the second time the Steelers had three or less since 2013.
Ironically, this was the one season since 2020 that his brother TJ was not named a captain. I guess the team decided that only one Watt brother was allowed to be a captain at a time.
Mitch Trubisky, 2022
Trubisky being named a captain isn’t necessarily the weirdest thing.
He was the first quarterback the team brought in to try and fill the void left by a retiring Ben Roethlisberger. Even after the team drafted Kenny Pickett in the first round in that spring’s draft, the team stuck with Trubisky as the stopgap starter to open the year, with Pickett waiting the wings.
It’s interesting to read back about how players spoke about the quarterback room before the 2022 season kicked off.
“All three quarterbacks have just been great, if I’m being honest, ” Cam Heyward, who was also a captain in 2022, said before Week 1. “But Mitch is the guy we’re riding with.”
“It’s a tremendous honor,” Trubisky said at the time “Anytime you’re voted by your peers and your teammates, it obviously means a lot. I just come in here, try to lead by example, earn the trust of my teammates, and for them to vote me captain, it definitely means a lot.”
However, Trubisky’s captaincy was tainted just a few weeks in, when Tomlin benched him for Pickett midway through the team’s fourth game of the season. Trubisky would not see the field again the rest of the season, except in the case of injury to Pickett.
Having a captain that has been relegated to the backup job is not ideal, but he remained a team captain all season long, and still could be seen walking out to midfield alongside the other captains before each game,
Pickett would overtake him on the depth chart, and would assume his captaincy spot the next year, as starting quarterback.
Najee Harris, 2022
The 2022 season was an odd year for Steelers offensive captains. To this day, 2022 sits as the most recent year the team had multiple offensive captains, with Harris being voted the other spot.
Harris, a first round pick by the Steelers a year before, led the NFL in touches his rookie season and was a workhorse for the team. Even if that didn’t always produce the most efficient results, he was someone capable of taking every hit on the field and getting right back up.
In his sophomore season, his teammates gave him the honor of being a captain alongside the new Trubisky. His quarterback (for the time being) had lots of good stuff to say about him.
“He was there for me from day one,” Trubisky said. “And to me, those are the little things that people don’t see that leaders do on a day-to-day basis. Having those relationships that go deeper with, beyond with your teammates, that’s why he is who he is.”
Although the team captains are voted on by the players, it is interesting to note that Harris is the only running back to be named a team captain, either on offense or special teams, in the Tomlin era.
The 2022 season was also the last time the Steelers voted multiple offensive captains. In the last three seasons, each team has named the quarterback as the only captain on that side of the ball.
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