Hours after the Pittsburgh Steelers reportedly agreed to terms with former Houston Texans punter Cameron Johnston, we now know the overall structure of the contract. According to Ari Meirov, it’s a three-year deal worth $9 million, an average yearly value of $3 million.
Such a deal would tie Johnston with the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Logan Cooke as the fourth-highest paid punter in football. The highest-paid punter remains Seattle’s Michael Dickson at $3.674 million per year, a deal he signed back in June 2021.
Johnston’s full contract breakdown is now available via Aaron Wilson on Twitter.
Johnston will receive a signing bonus of $2.875 million and base salaries of $1.125 million, $2.5 million and $2.5 million in 2024, 2025 and 2026, respectively. His cap charges will be $2,083,333, $3,458,333, and $3,458,334, respectively.
A seventh-year veteran, Johnston was born in Australia and grew up there before playing his college ball at Ohio State. Undrafted in 2017, he was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles but did not make their roster. He returned in 2018 and won the job, serving as the Eagles’ punter through the 2020 season. He signed with the Houston Texans in 2021 and had been their punter for the last three years. Now, he’s signing with the Steelers. The move can’t become official until the new league year begins Wednesday.
For his career, Johnston has averaged a healthy 47.3 yards. For punters with at least 150 attempts since 2018, that ranks 10th in the NFL. In 2023, he registered 47.7 gross yards per punt, a better mark than any Steelers punter in franchise history. Pittsburgh’s current single-season record is 47, set by Bobby Joe Green in 1961. In 2023, Pressley Harvin III averaged just 43.8 yards per punt.
Johnston also boasts a solid net punting average, a low touchback percentage, and a high rate of punts inside the 20. His only downside is a lack of hangtime, routinely finishing among the bottom of the league. Per Pro Football Focus, his 2023 hangtime was 4.25 seconds, tied for 28th in the league. Harvin ranked 12th at 4.39 seconds. Overall, this move is still an upgrade and will hopefully flip the field more often and more consistently than the last three seasons with Harvin.
