The Pittsburgh Steelers released punter Pressley Harvin III on Monday, and is now looking for a new spot after the team that drafted him moved on.
Pittsburgh’s seventh-round draft pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, Harvin struggled to maintain consistency and now has been released by the team. In his post-season debriefing, Mike Tomlin mentioned that Harvin had not met their standards.
“You know, I’ll acknowledge that Pressley (Harvin) wasn’t consistent enough, particularly down the stretch,” Tomlin said.
But Harvin came into the league as a highly-touted player. He won the Ray Guy Award at Georgia Tech and seemed destined to be a long-time NFL punter, but it has not come to fruition just yet. But Pat McAfee believes that Harvin will find himself a new spot quickly, largely becuase of how hard it is to punt in Pittsburgh.
“I think being in Pittsburgh is tough. I think that is a tough place to punt. Just everywhere you play is terrible. Pittsburgh is terrible. The fans will boo you. It’s a very tough place to punt, wouldn’t want to do it,” McAfee said.
Harvin had the 2nd worst yards per punt in 2023 at just 43.8 yards. It seems his struggles against the Bills were the last straw, as Harvin put the team on multiple short fields throughout the game. A mere 38.5 punt average led Harvin to one of his most lackluster career showings. For a team that plays the field position game so strongly, having a subpar punter is a big deal, especially when they invested a draft pick in Harvin.
Harvin, the Steelers’ seventh-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, hit some big punts in his three-year NFL career, but has not developed the kind of consistency most teams look for in a punter. But the team does not have punter on the roster, and so it seems they will have to find one either in free agency, the NFL Draft, or both.
In 2022, Harvin finished 19th in the NFL in net punting average at 41.1, a three-yard improvement over his rookie season, and his 137 total return yards was the second-fewest among regular punters. But his gross average was just 44.5, or 28th in the league, because of too few short kicks off the side of his foot. And that took a step back in 2023, leading to the ultimate move here.
