Don’t look now, but the Steelers have a punter competition on their hands, at least according to HC Mike Tomlin. Previewing tomorrow night’s game, he confirmed that Cameron Johnston and Corliss Waitman will battle for the job. Of course, saying there’s a competition doesn’t always mean that there actually is one, or much of one, at least.
“We intend on using both punters, and we’ll trade punt for punt”, Tomlin said of Johnston and Waitman, via the Steelers’ website. “We’re probably gonna be in that posture until we get clarity, or throughout the preseason. It’s highly competitive. They’re both varsity. But that’s the type of competition that you want. You want guys to win jobs because of what they do, not because of what others don’t do. So far, we’ve been really impressed by both guys, and out here, the things that we’ve seen in team development, we’ll continue to watch them as we get into stadiums”.
Pittsburgh strove to end its punting woes last year, signing one of the best in the league in Cameron Johnston. Imported on a three-year, $9 million contract, he lasted exactly two punts before tearing his ACL. The Steelers managed to pick up Corliss Waitman, who played well enough to enter a punter competition this year.
A couple weeks back, Steelers special teams coordinator Danny Smith reiterated he believes they will have a punter competition. But Mike Tomlin is the one who makes the final decisions, so hearing it from him is a different story.
After Johnston’s injury, Waitman set a Steelers single-season punting record with a 41.4-yard net average. Before fuming with rage over why he shouldn’t keep the job, know that the record he surpassed belonged to Pressley Harvin III of 41.1 yards. And that is also what the league-average net punt went for last season. For context, Johnston averages 42.2 net yards per punt for his entire career. His average is better than the best in Steelers history—hence why people question the sincerity of this punter competition.
In the year prior to the Steelers signing him, Johnston averaged 43.7 yards per net punt. That is over two yards better than the all-time franchise record, which was only set last year. If then, Waitman wins the punter competition, I think he’ll have to do so by a wide margin.
At the same time, I just don’t see that happening. By all accounts, Johnston appears to be booming the ball throughout training camp. He is showing no ill effects of last year’s injury. And you’re not going to evaluate a long-time elite punter based on a few preseason games alone. So if the Steelers are having a true punter competition, I still suspect it’s a weighted one. Or more accurately, one aimed at raising the value of the loser as a commodity for trade. Because who couldn’t use an extra conditional seventh-round draft pick?
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