Maybe people should cut Pressley Harvin some slack

6 you and I aren't going to see eye to eye on this one either. He has been inconsistent all season. At times he has been flat awful. Many teams would have moved on by now.

Now Harvin has a built in excuse to suck. It's okay that he sucks because his Dad is sick. Whatever makes you guys feel better. Maybe he can bunk out with Tuitt for the rest of the year. That way we can bring somebody in who can consistently kick a football further than 35 yards.

 

Yeah, football players aren't human, nothing affects them at all .

 

Or maybe he just isn't that good of a punter?

 

I don't know about built in excuse because it doesn't appear like he has said anything other than it was a shock to find out his dad might not see the new year. I think his ups and downs so far this year is based solely on playing to not screw up instead of kicking like he knows how. We have seen how he can kick now is the time just grip it and rip it. No matter what the fan base is going to gripe whether he does 60 yard punts or 40 yards coffin corner ones, fans are going to piss and moan. Some will say he is out kicking his coverage others he needs to angle more. My 2 cents he just needs to say f it and just kick. If he gets cut tomorrow he will at least know he gave it his best.

 

Harvin hasn't created any excuses for himself. But now that the story is out, certain fans have created an excuse on his behalf.

IMO Pressley Harvin's inconsistency comes from his body type. There is a reason that we do not see any 300 lb Punters in the NFL. Punting a football at the NFL level requires a significant amount of muscle memory. This is a lot more difficult to achieve for a stocky 300 lb guy than it is your typical 190 lb lengthy guy.

I was worried he would have issues such as this when he was drafted. Harvin's punting motion did not translate well to he NFL. Frankly it is going better than I thought it would.

 

While he does have some bad punts, he is the least of the issues on the Steelers and no where close to the reason they are 7-6-1.

His punt average is pretty low in the league rankings however the difference between 25th (Harvin) and 10th is only 4 yards. He does rank 10th in total punt yards and the stat I like the most, he is tied for 8th with 22 punts inside the 20. He's a rookie and the Steelers offense tends to get him stuck deep in their zone a lot. He defiantly needs to improve but I don't think they should replace him for 2022.

 

Winning the Ray Guy award says otherwise.

 

Tim Tebow once won the Heisman Trophy.

 

Well the Heisman is usually a bad omen for NFL QBs and other positions can win it. Ray Guy is about skill.

 

But there is a difference though isn't there?

Is anyone watching how a "common man" is prepping for their job 24/7? Is there watching how a mechanic puts each bolt into a brake caliper and screaming at him if he mishandles one and drops it into the floor grate?

Reporters showing up and trying to ask his boss about his consistency while installing brake calipers? People threatening to not use his boss's service station because he can't seem to get it correct and not drop a bolt while changing said caliper?

Now if that guy doesn't put all the bolts in and brake failure happens, then we got a problem. We're still not sending reporters to the changing room while he's getting out his overalls asking why he screwed that job up. There's no pity for him if he went to work knowing his head wasn't in the moment and messed up a brake job that killed or injured someone. Most of us would say that if he knew his head wasn't in it in that type of job, then he needed to stay home. That's not an option for the only punter on the team.

All that to say, just look at what we're talking about here. We're not saying it's ok for him to shank a punt, we're saying that it puts a little perspective on his struggles in this game. We will see if he can overcome this and get better, if not, he's gone.

 

Doesn't that show about as much with the young man's character that he didn't put it out there as some sort of excuse? That he didn't take the "Woe is me" approach?

I think the fans can be given a pass, because those punts were horrible in a game where it was looking like field position was going to really matter?

Hell the one he hit 51 was returned 53 when even though it was on more of a line they had the people there to cover it up and tackle him. but didn't!

 

Yeah, Wuerffel is a folk legend in my high school hometown with streets named after him, but really didn't amount to much in the NFL.

He did take that fame and worked it into charitable causes though.

 

I agree with a lot of what you said.

But keep in mind this is a punter we are talking about. Not exactly the NFLs most high profile position.

It is not like Pressley Harvin has paparazzi following him around.

 

How is that the fault of the fans? None of them knew about his situation. It didn't become public until after the game. All any of us knew at that point was that Harvin had recently gone from inconsistent to consistently bad.

 

Sounds like rationalizing poor behavior to me. Whether or not anyone knew about the health of Harvin's dad wasn't the point. All I'm saying is that if I were in his dad's shoes, I would feel bad for my son getting booed in that situation. And if that is the last in-person experience he ever gets to watch his son play ball, well I think that is pretty crappy.

 

I'll make one last point before I bow out.

If Ben would have thrown 5 INTs Sunday, but we all found out after the game that his Father was in a similar situation, would you guys cut him some slack?

What about Mike Tomlin? What if Tomlin botched clock management at the end of the game Sunday and it cost the Steelers a win. Would you guys cut Tomlin some slack if you found out Tomlin's Father had fallen ill?

The answer is no way. There would be 7 FMTI threads and 6 bench Ben threads.

I also find it interesting that public enemy #1 Aditi Kinkabwala is back on everyone's good side.

 

The only way it would have been poor behavior is if they had known the father was there and they had known his situation, but they chose to boo Harvin anyway. They didn't know he was there. They didn't know his situation. Are you saying that fans booing is always bad behavior?

It absolutely sucks. If that really was his last time seeing his son play, I hate that he had to hear that reaction, but it's not fair to blame people for not knowing about a situation that had not been made public at the time.

 

Yes, booing is poor behavior IMO. I'm not going to debate an opinion.

 

Actually, you have been debating an opinion. In fact, this entire board is made up mostly of debates about opinions. I really was trying to clarify your position.

In this case, that's certainly a reasonable take. Booing isn't really my thing, but I don't have a problem with it. It is easy enough to agree to disagree on that.

I do have a problem with blaming the fans for what Harvin's father had to hear in what may be the last time he sees his son play, because they didn't know about his situation.

 

Harvin is a rookie. He will get better. His avg. is better than Andy Lee's was his first two seasons and Lee should get his 4th All-Pro this season.

Way too early to be down on Harvin.

Harvin wasn't here the last 10 seasons during which time the Steelers have beaten 1 starting QB in the playoffs... I'm not sure the P is to blame...

 

Agree with you 100% on this. I was at the game. He got booed because he was playing poorly - NO ONE knew it might be because of his ill father because this isn't the first week he has gotten booed. In fact, the offense was also getting booed.....because they were playing poorly and we, as fans, expect better -right or wrong.

 

Good lord, dude. I was merely sharing my opinion. If you think that is debating, then OK, whatevs.