After the signing of punter Braden Mann this offseason, it seems that the path for Pressely Harvin III to make the Pittsburgh Steelers’ roster became harder. Harvin’s first season in the NFL was less than spectacular, and last season wasn’t a huge improvement, leading to the Steelers bringing in competition this offseason. Despite this, Steelers.com writer Bob Labriola believes Harvin has a very good chance of retaining his roster spot.
Labriola was answering a question in his Asked and Answered article about when the Steelers would be upgrading from Harvin, and cited the Steelers’ punting strategy to explain why he thinks Harvin will keep his job.
“What I can tell you is that your assessment of Pressley Harvin III is not shared by the coaching staff,” wrote Labriola to a reader. “The Steelers emphasize directional punting as a means to support the coverage and to limit return yardage so as to avoid putting their defense in a bad situation following a big return. In 2022, the Steelers punt team ranked second in the NFL by allowing only 24 punts to be returned for an average of 5.7 yards per return.”
Harvin did not have a great year for average distance of punt, with his punts going only an average of 44.5 yards last season. However, due to the strategy employed by Pittsburgh to limit return yards he did his job, and Harvin only allowed a total of 137 return yards in 2022, good for fifth best of punters with more than one punt.
While you can argue that it isn’t a great strategy and the punter should just boot it as deep as he can, that is not the strategy the Steelers are employing. Harvin does the job asked of him well, and also does a good job in being the holder in the kicking game, which is vital. Labriola also mentioned this as to why it will be hard for Mann to unseat Harvin this season.
“Harvin will have to beat back the summer’s competition presented by Braden Mann,” Labriola wrote, “but if he continues to work in tandem with the coverage as well as he did last season in addition to being the reliable holder he has been for Chris Boswell, he’s going to keep his job.”
It would be great if Harvin can add a few more yards to his punt while still being able to limit the returns of the opposition, but what Harvin already contributes in the punting game and in his job as a holder doesn’t make his shorter punting distance average a huge concern.
Obviously we will have to wait for training camp and preseason to see how Harvin and Mann look. But given his status as the incumbent and the Steelers’ punting strategy it seems like Harvin will enter his third season of the NFL as the punter for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
