Former Chartiers Valley, Duquesne star Christian Kuntz relishes making Steelers roster

Told he had recently become the second-highest paid active professional athlete from Chartiers Valley High School, new Pittsburgh Steelers long snapper Christian Kuntz revealed he had plans to go out to lunch with the one former Colts star who maintains a sizable financial lead on him.

“He’s paying,” Kuntz said of veteran NBA point guard T.J. McConnell. “For sure.”

Even at the NFL minimum of $660,000, Kuntz’s new gig comes with an annual salary that’s more than 20 times the median U.S. income. But Kuntz would need to hold onto the job, at that rate, for 51 years to match what his good friend former teammate on the Chartiers Valley basketball team, McConnell, will make over the next four years with the Indiana Pacers ($33.6 million).

The money, though, is only one part about what made making the Steelers’ 53-man roster so satisfying for Kuntz, who played in college at Duquesne.

“It hasn’t really hit me yet, honestly,” Kuntz said Wednesday, a day after he learned he’d survived final cuts. “My family keeps saying, ‘You don’t seem excited.’ I mean, obviously, I am excited — (but) it’s still my job (to focus on), and as quick as I got on the 53, I can be off the 53. So I am just taking it day by day and going to work and doing what I’ve got to do to get better at my craft.”

To most outside of the organization, Kuntz was something of an upset winner over veteran Kameron Canaday in the battle at long snapper that endured throughout summer workouts, training camp and four preseason games.

But perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Kuntz, after all, must have impressed Steelers coaches to some degree since they invited him to training camp three consecutive years. He also spent several weeks of last season on the practice squad.

“Christian is very consistent,” Steelers special teams coordinator Danny Smith said. “His ball is the same ball… He’s very consistent in his snaps, in his location, and that’s a challenge as a snapper. He’s a good player.”

The 27-year-old Kuntz’s status as an NFL rookie might seem old, but he didn’t focus purely on long snapping until after college. A second-team Associated Press FBS All-American at Duquesne as a pass-rushing edge defender, Kuntz spent most of his first three years of NFL training camps repping at outside linebacker.

Cycling through brief opportunities with the at least six NFL teams, Kuntz said it took a failed tryout for the Green Bay Packers to realize his best hope to stick in the NFL was not on defense but as a snapper.

“I was the backup and had done it for like three games at Duquesne, and (Packers coaches) asked me to snap,” Kuntz said, “and once I did it they were like, ‘Hey, this is what you need to work on the next year, two years, whatever you need to do, and you’ll be in the league.’

“So that’s how I kind of took it and ran with it.”

It took all three of those years — and more — for Kuntz to stick, though. Aside from preseason games, a stint as the snapper for the XFL’s Dallas Renegades in 2020 was his lone full-time game experience with the gig.

“I definitely feel as If I’ve progressed as a long snapper in the last three years,” said Kuntz, who left college as the Northeast Conference’s all-time sacks leader.

Kuntz will become the second alumnus of Duquesne to play in the NFL regular season, joining cornerback Leigh Bodden (2003-11).

“I had something in my mind that I wanted to make it to where I am at now,” Kuntz said. “I just kept working on long snapping and doing what I had to do to get to this spot.”

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