It looks like the Pittsburgh Steelers will have a new long snapper for the 2021 season as veteran Kameron Canaday is reportedly being let go by the team, according to as Monday report from Ian Rapoport of NFL Media.
This means that Christian Kuntz has beaten out Canaday for the right to be the team’s long snapper in 2021. Kuntz bounced around on the Steelers practice squad last season.
Canaday took over as the Steelers long snapper in 2017 after beating out then-rookie Colin Holba for the job. The Steelers will have a dead money charge of $225,000 in 2021 due to them terminating the contract of Canaday.
It became obvious that there was a long snapper competition entering the final week of the preseason when the Steelers decided to keep Kuntz as part of the roster being trimmed down to 80 active players.
Kuntz, a Duquesne product, was a long snapper in the XFL with the Dallas Renegades a few years ago. He entered the NFL originally in 2017 as an undrafted free agent linebacker with the New England Patriots. After being cut by the Patriots, Kuntz focused on becoming a long snapper and ultimately spent time on the rosters of the Denver Broncos and Jacksonville Jaguars in 2018. Two of those weeks was spent on the Jaguars practice squad to close out the 2018 season.
After being waived by the Jaguars last June, Kuntz signed with the Steelers in August of 2019. He played in the Steelers 2019 preseason finale against the Carolina Panthers at both long snapper and outside linebacker and even registered a sack in that contest.
Kuntz played linebacker in college and was a part of three Northeast Conference (NEC) championship teams (2013, 2015 and 2016). He is the only Duquesne player in the school’s history to earn All-America honors three times and finished his collegiate career with a school record 30.5 sacks and 248 tackles en route to earning two NEC Defensive Player of the Year awards.
