Corliss Waitman's Unexpectedly Great 2021 Season

punters don't get many opportunities to prove themselves in games sometimes you punt only twice or not at all and for free agent punters these opportunities become even more scarce some guys graduate college and train their butts off never knowing if they'll get a shot at the next level leading them to do crazy things like start a youtube channel commenting on other punters but i digress because the punter i'm talking about today is one who got his chance and by golly did he use it well the punter is cordless weightman out of the university of southern alabama and he's been on the free agent market for a couple of years and just got his first start for the pittsburgh steelers at the end of the season when their punter presley harvan was dealing with personal issues and while for any other position getting the start would mean you would get a handful of plays across two games like maybe somewhere between 15 to 30. for corliss he got seven seven that's it seven punts on the biggest stage against probably some of the toughest opponents in the league so let's break down those two games and seven puns to see how corliss did the notables zero shanks zero drop snaps zero punt return touchdowns right those are the things you can absolutely not have he did hit a touch back but that was on a 63-yard nuke which led to him netting 43 yards and i know no special teams coach in the world is gonna be mad about that for the most part he kicked confidently and he was very competent while holding his water in tough cold winter games in front of fans and boy oh boy did he boot the crap of the ball averaging 52 yards per punt for those seven punts that would lead the league assuming he could keep that up all season uh also he didn't have any short filled punts to bring down that average kind of on top of that to help him maintain that super high average top of all of this though he really handled adversity well like really really well against the browns he had to shuffle to the right to catch a bad snap and still hit a pretty good ball and he was backed up and the browns brought heavy heavy pressure in his face and he was still able to nuke it right over the head he even hurdled a guy while doing it so all in all waitman kimball okay but as an enthusiast a fellow punter and a bringer of punting opinions to you all here's what i'm sure special teams coaches will be using to analyze his performance going forward aka the things he might need to work on or prove himself in first directionally well there was no direction now whether this is by design to ensure that he doesn't shank one or out of whiteman's own comfortability at the nfl level people love to punt the ball directionally they love to punch to the boundaries you know even though while waitman did lead the league in yards per punt in his seven punts he had a decent bit of return yards and you know some might say that maybe if the ball was a little bit closer to the sideline they wouldn't have returned it just as far his lack of direction i don't think will be a killer for him because if you can kick it that far that consistently they'd much rather have their coverage team cover better than to try to teach you how to punt further so second we didn't get to see much of his close range game for a lot of teams this can make or break your chances in the nfl and gives them a second angle of attack if they're in that weird situation when the ball's on the 39 but it's fourth and 42 and i'm sure he has it in his back pocket but it just depends on how many styles he has and how consistently he can do it and if he's really really mastered it or not but aside from those little two details any team looking for a punter this offseason is going to be foaming at the mouth to pick up cordless and i can't wait to see where he's going to be playing next year but as always i hope you guys are having an amazing day and peace 52-yard one what a job by corliss whitman i don't know how this was not blocked look at the edge rush here and he pulls up at the last but he got to go for the ball there