While multiple position battles have played out during the preseason, one that has been often overlooked is the punting battle in Pittsburgh between Braden Mann and Pressley Harvin III.
Mann was brought in this offseason to push Harvin for the job after Harvin struggled with consistency over his first two seasons. Heading into Pittsburgh’s final preseason game last night against the Atlanta Falcons, the notion was that Harvin had a slight lead on Mann for the job. Fortunately for Mann, he went out putting together a great performance.
Mann crushed it in his final preseason game with the Steelers, punting three times for 147 yards (49.0 average) with a long of 61 yards. He pinned all three punts inside the 20-yard line, showing great ball placement and hang time to make Pittsburgh have to seriously consider keeping him on its 53-man roster. However, Harvin has had a strong preseason himself, showing more consistency than in previous seasons, placing multiple punts inside the 10-yard line against the Buffalo Bills last week.
Perhaps Mann’s performance Thursday night could play into Pittsburgh’s favor if teams across the league look for quality punter play as they make their final roster cuts. One of those teams could be the Philadelphia Eagles, who Adam Caplan of Pro Football Network mentioned as a team that needs to figure that position out after trying multiple players there the last couple of years, only to yield unsatisfying results. Caplan mentioned that the Eagles actually put in a waiver claim for Mann back in April, but that Pittsburgh beat them in waiver priority.
“So should the Pittsburgh Steelers — who were the team awarded Mann — cut him, keep an eye on the Eagles potentially for his services through waivers once again,” Caplan wrote for Pro Football Network.
It’s entirely possible that Philadelphia could just wait the Steelers out to see if they cut Mann to get down to their 53-man roster. However, GM Omar Khan should at least reach out to the Eagles to see if they’d be willing to part with a late-round conditional draft pick to secure Mann via trade rather than going through the waiver claims process again.
This would be a great opportunity for the Steelers to get back some draft capital for a player they would likely lose if they try to stick him on the practice squad post-cuts. Pittsburgh managed to trade a punter before at the conclusion of the postseason, dealing P Brad Wing to the New York Giants in 2015 for a late-round draft pick. Should Pittsburgh land a conditional sixth- or seventh-round pick in exchange for Mann, it would be yet another win for Khan and the front office in maximizing the talent and competition on the roster to give them another asset.
