One position that’s crucial on the 53-man roster that doesn’t necessarily get the same attention as others is long snapper. It occupies a very valuable spot on the 53-man roster, and it’s a specialized position. A team can’t just send its center out to long snap, but we don’t often hear from or about long snappers. On Cameron Heyward’s Not Just Football podcast, the specialists, including long snapper Christian Kuntz, joined the show, and Steelers kicker Chris Boswell talked about the position and said he views it as underrated.
“Very underrated. Greg Warren, when he was here, basically his attitude was if you never talk about the long snapper, you’re doing your job. So I kind of just base it off that. If you hear a lot about Christian, he’s probably not doing a good job. We haven’t heard a lot about him,” Boswell said.
The Steelers brought in competition for Kuntz this offseason with Rex Sunahara, who got all the snaps at the position in the team’s preseason opener. At this point though, it would be a bit of a surprise if Kuntz, who’s been Pittsburgh’s long snapper since 2021, didn’t win the job.
He hasn’t been great, and there’s been a lot of times he’s been bailed out by Pressley Harvin III’s prowess as a holder. But for the most part, there haven’t really been any major issues with Kuntz as a long snapper. Like Boswell said, we haven’t really heard his name a lot, and that’s a great sign that he’s been doing his job.
Boswell did struggle a bit last season, with his lowest made field goal percentage since 2018, and Kuntz had some noticeable issues on field goal snaps in particular, which is where Harvin was able to bail him out a little bit. Matthew Wright, who replaced an injured Boswell, also missed two kicks against the New Orleans Saints in the Steelers’ first game out of the bye.
The Steelers, who are always looking to improve any way they can and add competition under Omar Khan, have also worked out a slew of long snappers, in addition to bringing in Sunahara. Yet, they haven’t found anyone they really like enough who has shown the capacity to replace Kuntz.
Whether that’s more of a statement on them liking Kuntz and what he brings to the team or the state of the long snapper market should really be determined this season. If Kuntz has another year with issues snapping on field goals and Boswell struggles, or if he has a snap that causes a turnover or worse, I’d expect the Steelers to search for his replacement probably at the end of the season.
But he’s done his job fine up to this point. He also seems like a personable guy and someone fun to have around the locker room, and in a specialist position any added value you can bring on or off the field is going to help. I think Kuntz is going to end up being just fine this year.
Watch the full podcast below:
