Sep 6, 2002 By Jim Wexell For The 4 min read

PITTSBURGH – They came at him in waves after that disastrous performance in the preseason opener, but Pittsburgh Steelers special teams coach Kevin Spencer hasn’t dealt with many reporters in recent weeks. Not that he minds.

“That’s a good thing,” he said. “That means you probably played decently. If you didn’t, only the educated eye saw it, like the head coach.”

So even if the Steelers’ special teams had played poorly, the media wouldn’t have noticed.

“You said it, not me,” Spencer said with a laugh. “No, I feel good. The guys have been attentive and coachable and I think we’ve gotten good effort in everything I’ve asked them to do. They’ve accepted some of my quirks and the way I do things so I feel pretty good about things.”

Spencer, of course, is set to officially begin his tenure with the Steelers on Monday night. He withstood a first preseason game in which the Steelers, among other mistakes, suffered a blocked punt and seemingly started off the way they had ended the previous season.

But Spencer feels pretty good about the last three preseason games. He also feels good about training camp, which can be a nightmare for special teams coaches.

“You try to do it with a crystal ball,” he said. “You try to envision who’s going to make the team so that the guys are getting reps, and when they do make your team they just step in. I feel good that everybody we have out there took valuable reps during preseason in those positions, so you’re not all of the sudden coaching somebody who didn’t do a blessed thing for the last six weeks.”

And, so, yes, he feels good. But he admits – with a nod to being politically correct – that he really won’t know until Monday night.

“I feel pretty good about our return game,” he said. “I know with punt return we didn’t get a lot of quality chances, but you could tell on film that we’re not real far away. Kickoff return, I feel pretty good about, but I say all of this knowing people are pretty vanilla in preseason.

“The coverage thing, when we had guys in there that I thought had a chance to make the team, I thought we did pretty well. And even when we made mistakes, they were correctable mistakes. Overall, I feel good about the return game first and coverage second.”

No matter the caliber of coaching, though, special teams are about players; mainly back-up players on the cusp of becoming quality starters, such as Hines Ward, Joey Porter, Jason Gildon, even back to Greg Lloyd. They were all special-teams demons prior to becoming first-teamers. Does Spencer see any of those types of players?

“I’ve seen little bits and pieces,” he said.

“There are guys with a past history of making plays, guys like Mike Logan, John Fiala and Clark Haggans.

And then you see a kid like Chris Hope flashing and starting to get better.”

Hope will be one of the gunners on the punt-coverage team. He’ll line up opposite Hank Poteat on Monday night.

The wide kick-cover players are Poteat and Deshea Townsend, with Hope and Lenzie Jackson also contributing wide.

The inside wedge-busters are Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala, Haggans, Fiala and Logan, who’s been moved inside.

The return men on kickoffs are Poteat and Lee Mays. The punt returner is Antwaan Randle El, giving the Steelers two rookies out of the three, but that doesn’t seem to bother Spencer.

“Lee Mays hasn’t really shown any shyness. He’s made plays in the kicking game and on offense,” Spencer said.

“And I think Antwaan’s one of those bright-lights guys that when the bright lights come on, he’ll shine for us.”

And when the bright lights come on, the Steelers will be up against one of the NFL’s better special teams, a group Spencer knows well from his days with the Indianapolis Colts.

“I’ve coached against them for four years,” he said of the Patriots. “They’re well-coached. Coach (Bill) Belichick puts a lot of time into it.

“People think I’m motivated by what happened here last year, but I’ve been going against this group for four years. It’s a very good group. We’d better be ready to play.”