While the position of punter has never been the most noteworthy in the NFL, there are few things more frustrating for a football fan than watching a bad punt. You’ve just seen your offense get shut down, possibly even a three-and-out. Maybe it was fourth and short, and instead of going for it and perhaps keeping the drive alive, your team punted it a whopping 34 yards all the way to the opponent’s 44-yard line. Ugh.
This is likely a familiar feeling for Pittsburgh Steelers fans who watched a lot of the team last year. The numbers show that the 2022 Steelers did not have a great punting unit.
It all starts with third-year punter Pressley Harvin III, who the Steelers drafted in the seventh round in 2021. Harvin was a standout punter at Georgia Tech, leading the entire nation in punt yards per kick. The big leg didn’t carry over right away to the NFL, as in his rookie season the Steelers ranked 29th in the league in punt average. However, he was putting a decent amount of punts inside the opponent’s 20, as the team ranked in the top half of the league in that stat.
Last year, however, even that part of his game wasn’t great. The Steelers were just 28th in the league in percentage of punts inside the 20, at just 29%. And it wasn’t like Harvin was making up for the lack of accuracy with distance. In fact, only the New England Patriots had fewer yards per punt and a lower percentage of punts inside the 20 last season than the Steelers.
So what’s the answer in 2023? Harvin is only entering his third season in the league, and when you take his sterling college career into account, there are certainly reasons to be optimistic for improvement. But the question is, will the Steelers give him another year to showcase that improvement?
His competition is former New York Jets punter, Braden Mann, who the Steelers are bringing to training camp this season. Mann was a 6th-round pick of the Jets in 2020 and had a similarly successful college career to that of Harvin. At Texas A&M, he led the country in punt average as a junior and ranked fourth as a senior.
Despite his pedigree, he struggled as a rookie, and the Jets ranked in the bottom five in both yards per punt, and percentage of punts inside the 20. He’s shown some improvement over a half-season in 2021 and a full season in 2022, but the Jets have still had mediocre punting numbers in both seasons.
Harvin vs. Mann will be an interesting position battle to keep an eye on during training camp. But whoever wins the job will need to improve upon the poor performance the team had in the punting game last season, or fans will get frustrated real quick.
