Pittsburgh Steelers punter, Pressley Harvin III beat out the competition for his spot on the roster in 2022 after a rocky rookie season. Harvin improved marginally in 2023 as a punter and the organization is trying to push him in training camp by bringing in Braden Mann off waivers from the New York Jets. One team insider thinks the team has already chosen the winner, despite the appearance of a battle for the job.
Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
Former New York Jets punter, Braden Mann had a career-high eight touchbacks in 17 games for the New York Jets in 2022.
Longtime Steelers writer Bob Labriola thinks that the release papers for Mann might be coming very soon for two different reasons. First, despite a very poor average yards per punt of 44.5 in 2022, which ranked 28th in the league among 34 punters, Labriola dug up some stats of his own in a recent mailbag-type column on the team website that favors the young man the team drafted in 2021.
"The Steelers emphasize directional punting as a means to support the coverage and to limit return yardage so as to avoid putting their defense in a bad situation following a big return," he wrote. "In 2022, the Steelers punt team ranked second in the NFL by allowing only 24 punts to be returned for an average of 5.7 yards per return. The Chargers led the NFL in that category by allowing only 19 punts to be returned for an average of 3.1 yards per return."
A Comfortable Reason Why The Steelers Hang On To Harvin For 2023
Jordan Schofield / SteelerNation (Twitter: @JSKO_PHOTO)
Steelers' Chris Boswell prepares to attempt a field goal while Pressley Harvin sets the ball up from the snap.
For the second reason that Harvin is likely the Steelers' punter for a third consecutive season, we have to go back to some comments made by Chris Boswell last offseason when he explained how he'd developed a really good comfort level with Harivin as the holder on field goal tries. Labriola thinks that fact matters to the coaching staff and doesn't see them making a change. The team is also putting some pressure on the veteran kicker this offseason bringing in competition with former Clemson kicker BT Potter after he struggled a bit in 2022. Maybe leaving him some comfort in camp with Harvin holding helps him regain his confidence.
Labriola seemed to think the Steelers coaching staff is pretty comfortable going forward with Harvin as their guy. He's made improvements in each of his seasons and while as his low average suggests struggled to kick with distance consistently. The team may not necessarily care about the distance if he can continue to kick in spots where the coverage team can get it.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers punter Pressley Harvin III doing some warm-up stretches.
To put it in blunt terms, Labriola told the person asking the question that his assessment that the team needed to find an upgrade at the position "is not shared by the coaching staff." With someone as connected to the team as Labriola saying that, it might be fair to say that the competition between Mann and Harvin might be over before it even begins.
There is no doubt that Harvin has been through some rough times in his short professional career on and off the field. It's great that the Steelers family has supported and made him feel like a part of it, but at the end of the day, this business is about winning football games. If Harvin keeps putting the Steelers' defense in tough positions, they'd better be prepared to have another punter's phone on speed dial. Punters may not feel like an important part of the game, but when yours consistently can't help you win the field position game, it's a big challenge.
Do you think Harvin is in a real competition for his job this summer? Would you be happy if he's still the punter on the opening roster? Comment below!
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