Danny Smith is really working the gum right now. With the Steelers’ final pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, the choice was a specialist, punter Pressley Harvin III. Harvin has great experience, being a four-year player with 210 punts to his name. His senior season was his best statistically, with a 48.0 average on 45 punts.
He was the winner of the Ray Guy award given to the nation’s best punter, and has also completed three passes in his career. Harvin measured at 5111 and 263 pounds, and put up 225 on the bench 14 times. He is not your prototypical punter, and was the only punter drafted this year. There aren’t many profiles out there for punters, but here you go.
Here is where he was ranked by some draft outlets.
He was not listed on the NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah’s top 150.
He was not listed on Pro Football Focus’ top 300 board.
Lance Zierlein of NFL.com gave him a grade of 5.62 (Chance to make end of roster or practice squad) had a Round 7 projection on him and summarized him by saying, “Wide-body punter with extra quick operation time. Harvin was a heralded punter out of high school and seemed to improve throughout his time at Georgia Tech. His quick get-off might need to be slowed to help out his coverage team, though. He has an NFL leg and is consistent as a directional punter, which gives him a shot to be drafted.”
Alex Kozora had the specialist’s covered for Steelers Depot. He gave him a late Day 3/priority undrafted free agent grade and opined, “He’s probably going to need and want to get his weight down a little bit so he’s in shape and conditioned. I’m not sure why he needs to be 260+ pounds. If a coach can focus on his consistency…then I think Harvin can be a pretty good punter.“
Overall, based on the grades of the evaluators listed above this pick has a solid value grade. I mean, let’s be real. Taking a chance on a punter late in the seventh round is worth a shot. He will have competition with Jordan Berry and Corliss Waitman already on the roster. Harvin has a good leg, and if he can find consistency, he could earn the job.
