There seemed to be two overarching principles guiding the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offseason: get more physical and add competition however you can find it. The 90-man roster that they project to bring into training camp this year might be the most competitive that they’ve had for some years. That even goes down to the specialist positions.
No battle will be more contentious in that area than at punter, with third-year veteran incumbent Pressley Harvin III being tasked with fending off Braden Mann, a three-year veteran who was picked up off waivers from the New York Jets.
Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette believes this will be genuine contest, “one of the top five or six camp battles”, he said on 93.7 The Fan earlier this week. “I do think the door’s wide open for Mann to take that job if he punts well this summer”.
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.
“You don’t really see [a waiver claim on a punter] all too much, but I think that probably speaks to where the Steelers feel like they are right now with Pressley Harvin”, Fittipaldo said. “They liked the talent as a rookie and they were willing to learn with his mistakes and as he dealt with some personal issues as a rookie”.
“The same inconsistencies showed up during the season again. I think that’ll be a closely watched camp battle this year”, he added.
As for Mann, he too was a draft pick, taken in the sixth round in 2020 by New York. He has 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.
Mann became expendable by the Jets after they signed veteran Thomas Morstead, who has 14 years of NFL experience, including about half a year in New York in 2021. He has continued to perform well and hasn’t posted a net average under 40 yard since 2010.
In addition to the punting competition, we should also see one for the long snapper role after two seasons. Christian Kuntz unseated Kameron Canaday in 2021 when Harvin also beat out Jordan Berry for the punting job. The Steelers had been auditioning long snappers since December and finally signed one recently in Rex Sunahara. They also have a second kicker, but we shouldn’t anticipate Chris Boswell’s job to be threatened very genuinely.
