By Matthew Marczi
Player: Greg Warren
Position: Long Snapper
Experience: 9 Years
Free Agent Status: Unrestricted
2013 Salary Cap Hit: $620,000
2013 Season Breakdown: Usually the only time you have much to say about a long snapper, it’s going to be something bad. And generally those bad things are bad snaps that result in a fumble and a turnover, as we nearly saw when the Pittsburgh Steelers played the Cincinnati Bengals late in the season.
That’s not often something that can be said about the Steelers’ veteran long snapper, Greg Warren—at least not in terms of resulting in fumbled punts. In fact, I can’t recall a time one of his snaps directly resulted in a completely busted play.
That only happens when he gets injured and outside linebacker James Harrison is forced to pretend to be a long snapper.
But the 2013 recap of Warren’s season reads very much like the recap of his 2012 season. He had one somewhat questionable snap on a field goal that may have contributed to one of two misses by Shaun Suisham in a game in which the Steelers lost by three points. He also missed an assignment that resulted in a free rusher up the middle of the formation and a blocked Mat McBriar punt.
Those things do happen from time to time, though you don’t like when they each happen in consecutive seasons. But finding a quality long snapper is more difficult than it seems, and when you have a decent one, you can find yourself too afraid to experiment with somebody less proven.
Long snappers do not generally factor much in the stats sheets, but Warren, on the other hand, is probably below average in terms of covering punts when it comes to long snappers.
There are long snappers that actually put in some effort into running down the field and clogging a lane, if not making a tackle. This is an area of weakness for Warren that I doubt will ever improve at this point in his career.
Free Agency Outlook: As I wrote above, when you have a competent long snapper, you usually don’t want to tweak things too much and tempt fate. The long snapper position is so limited that one mistake becomes greatly magnified. The mistakes of a long snapper always have the chance of changing the game, whether it results in missed points or turnovers.
The Steelers used one of their first futures contracts outside of the organization to bring in a long snapper, but realistically, you know Warren is going to be re-signed, and you know he’s probably going to keep his job, as he did against Luke Ingram last year, unless the Steelers become really, really, really strapped for cash. And even then…
Other Steelers Free Agent Player Analysis
Ryan Clark – Unrestricted Free Agent
Emmanuel Sanders – Unrestricted Free Agent
Brett Keisel – Unrestricted Free Agent
Jerricho Cotchery – Unrestricted Free Agent
Ziggy Hood – Unrestricted Free Agent
Jason Worilds – Unrestricted Free Agent
David Johnson – Unrestricted Free Agent
Jonathan Dwyer – Unrestricted Free Agent
Fernando Velasco – Unrestricted Free Agent
Cody Wallace – Unrestricted Free Agent
Will Allen – Unrestricted Free Agent
Stevenson Sylvester – Unrestricted Free Agent
Felix Jones – Unrestricted Free Agent
Al Woods – Unrestricted Free Agent
Plaxico Burress – Unrestricted Free Agent
LaRod Stephens-Howling – Unrestricted Free Agent
Guy Whimper – Unrestricted Free Agent
Michael Palmer – Unrestricted Free Agent
Jamaal Westerman – Unrestricted Free Agent
