One of the most clear-cut, 1v1 battles in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp this summer will come at punter. Pressley Harvin III versus Braden Mann. Two guys with similar backgrounds. College stars. Ray Guy Award winners. Big-legged players trying to find NFL consistency.
What they accomplish as a punter this summer is obvious enough. Most of that will be judged inside stadiums. During practice, it’s hard to evaluate. There’s no true threat of a rush, most punts are on air, and it’s a low-intensity environment that can’t simulate the pressure of getting it right in a game. It makes the three preseason games critical in evaluating who will win the job, Harvin or Mann.
But punting isn’t the only component of a punter’s job description. They have to be equally good as the team’s holders as they are its punter. Virtually every starting punter in the NFL is also the starting holder. For the Steelers’ especially, a team who figures to kick a lot of field goals this year with high-paid kicker Chris Boswell, it’s a job you can’t mess up.
While Harvin has had his struggles as a punter, he’s been a rock-solid holder. If the battle between him and Mann is close, it could be enough to give Harvin the advantage.
In college, where not every punter holds (rosters are so large that you can have specific and specialized holders), Harvin was a part-timer at Georgia Tech. Because the team had two kickers, the Yellow Jackets had dual holders, as Danny Smith explained in 2021.
“They had a situation at Georgia Tech that they used two kickers,” Smith explained via Steelers.com. “It was much like a pitcher and a catcher, one had a holder that he liked and the other one had a holder that he liked, so you could call it part-time holding. When his guy kicked, he held. When the other guy kicked, the other guy held.”
Here are a couple of clips to show Harvin’s ability to hold.
Harvin beat out veteran Jordan Berry by a nose his rookie year and showed some of his holding chops, even if he struggled as a punter. In this clip, watch Harvin do two key things after receiving the snap from LS Christian Kuntz.
1. Spin the laces. The ‘ol “laces out!” It actually isn’t the absolute killer some make it out to be but the preference is to kick away from the laces. A nice spin here to get them turned around while not interrupting Boswell’s operation.
2. Change the lean of the ball. A forgotten aspect of holding. The ball must lean in the way the kicker wants it. Each kicker has their own comfort but as former great NFL long snapper Patrick Mannelly outlines, the lean matters.
“Depending on the wind and preference of the kicker the holder must lean the ball to a specific position. The holder never really places the ball straight up and down. Some kickers like the ball leaning slightly forward or to a side. Professional kickers will have a certain way they like the lean to help play the wind.”
In this example, you can see the ball lean inside toward Boswell initially. As Harvin spins the football, he leans it away from Boswell to where he wants it. All of this is done at the same time and in an instant as Boswell connects. A really nice job here.
This example from 2022 is more obvious. Kuntz struggled as a snapper last season but Harvin bailed him out. Here, this snap is high but Harvin is able to snag it cleanly and put the ball down on time and in the right spot to allow Boswell to kick without any hitch or pause in his motion.
There is some consideration as to whether or not Kuntz keeps his job, too. Rex Sunahara will push him this summer and we’ll see how the Steelers divvy up the reps between Harvin and Mann. If there will be a sole holder for each or if they will rotate. The latter seems more likely so you don’t risk going into a season with a snapper and holder who haven’t worked together.
Throughout the year, Harvin was clean and consistent on his holds. I don’t have an evaluation of how good of a holder Mann is, and he has versatility as a kickoff specialist that Harvin does not, but I do know Harvin is a talented holder. It won’t save him if Mann is clearly better this summer but if it’s close, the Steelers may want to hold onto Harvin funny enough, because of how he can hold.
