Coming off of two straight inconsistent — and sometimes disappointing — seasons as punter of the Pittsburgh Steelers, third-year man Pressley Harvin III is entering a pivotal training camp.
Harvin finds himself in a competition against veteran punter Braden Mann, whom the Steelers claimed on waivers in mid-April in an effort to bring in some competition for Harvin.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Steelers insider Gerry Dulac though, there’s not much of a competition there between the two, and that it’s Harvin’s job to lose as punter under special teams coordinator Danny Smith.
“He [Mann] has NFL experience, so he is more than just an extra leg at camp. I’m not sure there’s a huge competition, but he will give the coaches something to think about,” Dulac wrote in his latest Steelers chat for the Post-Gazette. “That being said, I think the only way Harvin isn’t the punter this year is if he loses the job himself.”
The Steelers selected Harvin in the seventh round of the 2021 NFL Draft. He was one of the very worst punters in the league that season, posting just 38.0 net yards per punt and 42.6 gross yards. While he improved with a 41.1-yard net average in 2022, his touchback rate increased while his rate of punts inside the 20 decreased.
He had an extremely inconsistent rookie season, though as has been acknowledged frequently, he was dealing with a lot in his personal life, with both his father and his grandmother passing away following battles with long-term health issues. His father passed away on Christmas Eve that year.
To his credit, he did step up last season and improved his consistency, perhaps best illustrated by the fact that he improved his average hangtime by nearly a 10th of a second. He also posted a 41.1-yard net punting average, slightly edging out Mann in that category, and had fewer of his punts returned.
As for Mann, he too was a draft pick, taken in the sixth round in 2020 by New York. He posted 40-plus-yard net averages in each of the past two seasons while averaging over 46 gross yards per punt in that time. Although he had a high number of touchbacks last season (some of them situationally appropriate), he’s been landing about a third of his punts inside the 20.
He won’t be just a camp leg, either. Mann should provide adequate competition for Harvin during training camp this year, and the fact that the Steelers decided to make that move suggests that they agree competition is necessary.
But as Dulac stated in his chat, it might not be much of a competition with the job largely being Harvin’s unless he loses it this summer in training camp and the preseason with a poor performance. Don’t tell Mann that though. He’s going to push Harvin. It wouldn’t be at all surprising if Mann is the starting punter Week One at Acrisure Stadium against the San Francisco 49ers.
