Will Improved Punting with Cameron Johnston Matter? | Steelers Morning Rush

good morning and welcome to another episode of Steelers morning rush I'm Alan Saunders it is Tuesday August 20th the Steelers will be back on the practice field at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex in just a couple hours I'll be there of course with full coverage for Steelers now.com and then I'll be back on this YouTube channel and in your podcast feeds with another episode with Zachary Smith of Steelers afternoon Drive later this afternoon but today we're going to talk about something that I think for a lot of people was a highlight of the Steelers second preseason game against the Buffalo Bills and is at the same time an area that I am slightly concerned about and that is the Steelers punting game and you're probably thinking Allan that's crazy new punter Cameron Johnston might have been the best player on the field for the Pittsburgh Steelers at Ager Stadium last Saturday and that my friends is correct uh but here's what concerns me there's you know we are familiar with the phrase outkicking your coverage right and I believe that's exactly what's happening here and it's not because Cameron Johnston is doing something wrong it's because the Steelers coverage has not been very good they are not getting their Gunners downfield anywhere near where the punt is landing and if you know anything about punt returns that's kind of what the punt returner wants if you're going to punt the ball 65 yards but the punt returner is 20 yards away from where the Gunners are when he catches the ball that is much better for the return team than if you punt the ball 45 yards and the Gunners are right there on top of them you assume that he is going to get at least that distance back if not more um because if you have the Gunners right on top of him you're essentially guaranteeing a fair catch I don't think Cameron Johnson should stop kicking the ball for I think the Steelers though need to figure some things out with this punt team and the Gunners specifically and I wonder you know desit Patrick has been in that job he doesn't seem like he has a a roster spot as a wide receiver I wonder if they'll look outside the organization down the roster Cuts if there's a player that's no known as a a you know good punt Gunner that they can go find maybe one of their old ones James Pierre is now with Washington miles boyin is with New York I don't know I'm not familiar with where those teams are in their depth chart and that kind of thing but maybe one of those guys will become available I don't know they really need to find an answer at punt Gunner though or those 65 yard kicks are just going to turn into long Returns the other way and that is a big problem you just can't have it they have to be better than they've been in covering kicks I think they've been doing fine in the kickoff rule uh but the punts have been concerning to say the least I have another worry about punts as well in that I already think that Mike Tomlin punts way more than he should if you're familiar with the analytics World they basically tell you punting is a bad idea more often than it's a good idea um there's actually an entire website called pun atics that is devoted to analytics of punters and what they say they use a derivation of EPA per play EPA stands for expected points added so it basically calculates the what What You've Won or what you've lost at the end of every play you know so basically if I have the ball uh first and 10 at my own 20 yard line uh how many points should I be expected to score on that drive well it's like I don't know maybe one right as an average uh if I get if I lose five yards and I get sacked and now I have second and 15 my own 15 I'm now gonna score less points on average over you know hundreds of thousands of drives in the history of football um punting is generally a losing play on an EPA per playay basis to the point that when punal litics began and they wanted to try to accurately calculate the impact of punters they had to like rewrite the scale they because all punts are bad essentially um not all but but the vast majority but what they did was they they calculate Pepa what they call which is basically the EPA compared to an average punt how how did this punter do compared to an average NFL punt Cameron Johnston was seventh in the NFL last year he is very very good and he only had uh 66 punts there were several guys with 75 77 uh you know punts in the 70s not that uncommon so he was a very good punter and is a very good punter but if he's punting more because now Mike Tomlin is confident in his punter's ability instead of whatever he was when Presley Harvin was struggling those punts are going to be negative for the team because there's going to be more of them if if punts are bad and you're punting more often because you think you have a bad punter or a good punter than you did when you had a bad punter that's going to be a net negative I'm I'm and then if your punter is good but the coverage unit is bad then it can be a a rather large negative and and the last part of this is you know there is mult there are multiple skill sets involved in the punter position and a lot of times you just get to go out there and kick the ball as hard as you want and that's you know when most punts occur but particular ularly conservative head coaches Mike Tomlin being one of them often punt from within that 65 yard max distance to the end zone he's punting from plus territory as much as any coach in the league maybe the most um and you have to have very fine placement on those punts to keep them from going in the end zone the Steelers had in the first preseason game against the Texans they punted from the 44 and they got a net 24 yard punt when it went into the end zone that's terrible that's awful like that's the worst possible outcome and so that is a different skill set than being able to kick the ball 65 yards down the field just because a punter is good at one doesn't make him good at the other and I worry that General faith in Cameron Johnston's abilities which are clearly impressive uh will sort of bleed over into faith in his ability to routinely pin guys inside the 5 yard line which I'm not sure is necessarily warranted at this juncture um you know he is not a guy that has done that at an extremely high level in the past so uh yeah this listen is is the punting game a big concern no um but if you but if you look at this you know last year on Presley Harvard and Cameron Johnston each had the same number of punts down inside the 20 uh so like there's I don't know I just adding a punter with a huge leg does not give a team a better punting game in general I think is where I'm cautioning here and the rest of the parts of this the the coverage and the head coach I'm a little skeptical about so is this a big deal in the whole no not really but I think it's something I've been thinking about and something I wanted to bring up up and also do want to give Johnson credit he is an incredible punter and uh he he kicks the heck out of it the Steelers need to do a better job around him and we'll see how well Mike Tomlin is able to use him that's all we got for today we've got Practice coming up a little bit later we'll have more after that I have a favor to ask you uh we had a little bit later uh episode yesterday and I kind of got the gears turning what time would you like to listen to the Steelers morning rush if you have been listening or if you're a new listener to this show for the first time uh give me a time in the comments when you feel like would be the perfect time for this to be posted I've been shooting for about nine this one's going to be a little bit after that um if there's a better time let me know uh when may we can uh find a sweet spot that gets everybody there morning uh morning cup of uh of Steelers morning Rush uh where when they need it so let me know and we'll try if we can make that happen uh thank thanks for listening thanks for watching and we'll see you next time