Booming punts at camp, Pressley Harvin III hoping to translate to season for Steelers

Pressley Harvin III proudly rattled off a series of numbers that were printed on a piece of paper he held in his hand. Without context and intimate knowledge of the subject matter, they might not have meant much. But to a player entering his second season as an NFL punter, they mean plenty.

“Sixty-three, five-point-three-two; sixty-two, five-point-oh-two; sixty-one, five-point-two-oh.”

Harvin was giving distance and hang times for his three best punts from Tuesday’s Pittsburgh Steelers practice at Saint Vincent.

That’s an average of 62 yards downfield and 5.18 seconds of hangtime. In other words, remarkable for a punter, even by NFL standards.

“Just some really, really good balls,” Harvin allowed himself to say a day later.

That the #Steelers lost to end their season wasn’t going to put a damper on this past Sunday’s game for Pressley Harvin III. https://t.co/K8LuRMG3sG

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) January 20, 2022

Harvin could afford to be at ease. His impressive day during live punting drills wowed the gathered fans at Chuck Noll Field hours after the Steelers officially anointed him their punter for the 2022 season by releasing the lone alternative for the job, Cameron Nizialek.

The likely truth is, though, that Nizialek never really had a chance to unseat Harvin, whom Steelers management thought enough of to draft him last year. Then, even after an up-and-down rookie season, they let his backup (Corliss Waitman) go after Waitman filled in for two late-season games in which he had long boots.

It is from the reason for those absences — the deaths of his father and grandmother — that Harvin gained the perspective that’s fueling his preparation for Year 2 in the NFL.

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“I knew the road is going to be a little rough but continued to just keep progressing down the road and just kept trying to get better,” Harvin said. “That playoff game (in Kansas City) when I did get a chance to come back, that was one of my best games of the year (49.71 average on seven punts) in the game we needed it that most.

“Ever since that game, I told myself, ‘No matter what you go through, you have to use it to try to make you motivated, not to let it hollow you and swallow you all the way in. Just continue to just keep trying to go fight it.’ I did the best that I could do last year … and just transpired over the offfseason working on getting my body back in shape. I’m feeling real good. My body and my legs are feeling really good right now. That muscle memory is starting to kick in.”

Pressley Harvin III on the difference between being a 2nd-yr punter than a rookie in the NFL pic.twitter.com/qysW0FtKK8

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) August 17, 2022

It sure did Tuesday in front of a horde of fans, who cheered Harvin’s high punts. The winner of the Ray Guy Award as college football’s best punter in 2020, Harvin is ready to carry that over onto the field during regular-season games. The first step is Saturday’s preseason game at the Jacksonville Jaguars. Likely because the Steelers were giving Nizialek one last look or showcasing him for other teams, Harvin sat out last week’s preseason opener.

“My hard work is starting to show off,” Harvin said, “so I need to continue to keep getting better and continuing to progressing.”

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