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Steelers punter Pressley Harvin III waits for a drill during training camp Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021, at Heinz Field.
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Gerry Dulac: Can Pressley Harvin prove to be Steelers’ sneaky weapon?

Matt Freed/Post-Gazette

Gerry Dulac: Can Pressley Harvin prove to be Steelers’ sneaky weapon?

From the moment he was drafted in the seventh round, Pressley Harvin III was all but guaranteed a spot on the 53-man roster. After all, teams don’t typically draft punters to cut them. They already get enough criticism just for using a draft choice to take one.

Harvin was renowned for his booming leg at Georgia Tech, where he averaged a school and ACC-record 48 yards last season and won the Ray Guy Award as the nation’s best punter. He also became only the third Georgia Tech player in history to be a unanimous All-America selection, joining Calvin Johnson (2006) and Ken Swilling (1990).

So it was no surprise this week when Harvin beat out veteran Jordan Berry for the punting job, even though Berry was coming off a season in which he averaged a career-best 45.8 yards. The Steelers have been looking for several years for someone to replace Berry, who was too inconsistent. They finally found their guy ... or so they think.

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What interested the Steelers about Harvin was his ability to flip the field with his thunderous punts — i.e., dig them out of a hole when they’re backed against their own goal line. Berry did that once. As a rookie in 2015, he delivered the NFL’s longest punt of the season — a 79-yarder — in a game against the Arizona Cardinals.

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But in three preseason appearances, Harvin failed to show off that powerful leg when given an opportunity with a long field.

Four of his nine punts in the preseason were from inside his own 30 — ample room to deliver one of those moon shots — but in those four instances, his longest punt was 49 yards. The others were 42, 45 and 48 yards.

Granted, in the Hall of Fame Game against the Dallas Cowboys, he dropped his first two punts at the Cowboys 10 on a 35-yard punt and the Cowboys 1 on a 48-yard punt, a nice way to start his career. But the Steelers didn’t draft Harvin to hit wedge shots. They drafted him to be Bryson DeChambeau, to hit bombs.

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And, so far, he has yet to do that.

Harvin will get plenty of opportunities to show off his powerful leg in the regular season. Who knows, he may even get a chance to show off that throwing arm that delivered a 50-yard dime on a fake punt in college.

There is much intrigue about a 6-foot, 255-pound punter who can do that. Which is why Berry never stood a chance.

Painful history

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There is a certain amount of incongruity that Ben Roethlisberger, the most protected quarterback in the league the past six years, is on the verge of becoming the most-sacked quarterback in NFL history.

Unless Tom Brady beats him to it.

Even if you throw out the 2019 season in which Roethlisberger played only six quarters because of his elbow injury, he has been sacked on average just 19 times per season since 2015. But that could change this season.

With a new offensive line that is minus his three Pro Bowl bodyguards — Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Al Villanueva — it is only a short amount of time before Roethlisberger passes Brett Favre as the quarterback taken down the most in history.

Roethlisberger could pass Favre by mid-October, especially if the Steelers get away from that short, quick-passing game that kept him upright most of last season. He will be playing behind a line that features new starters at all five positions, including two rookies.

Despite being sacked just 97 times since the start of the 2015 season — the fewest by far of any starting quarterback — Roethlisberger is third on the league’s all-time sacked list (516), just 10 shy of passing Favre (525) as the all-time leader. That’s because he was sacked 261 times, an average of 43.5 per season, from 2006 to 2011. Compare that six-year period to the past six years, in which he was sacked an average of just 16.1 times per season.

Brady has been sacked 521 times in his 22-year career, leaving him just five away from passing Favre. And, in the past six seasons, he has been sacked 178 times, an average of 29.6 per season — a pace that should get him to the top of the all-time list before Roethlisberger.

However, unlike Roethlisberger, Brady’s entire offensive line is intact from last season’s Super Bowl-winning team. He may get to Favre first, but he might not stay there long.

Gerry Dulac: gdulac@post-gazette.com and Twitter @gerrydulac.

First Published: September 3, 2021, 3:02 p.m.

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Steelers punter Pressley Harvin III waits for a drill during training camp Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021, at Heinz Field.  (Matt Freed/Post-Gazette)
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