When the Pittsburgh Steelers used a 4th round draft pick on punter Daniel Sepulveda, there was a major uproar throughout the fan base. “What are they doing?” “That’s too high of a price for a punter.” During last season the uproar in the fan base was back but it had a much different sound to it. “We need a punter!” “Get Mitch Berger out of there!”

See the Steelers prize punter went down at the beginning of training camp with a knee injury and was lost for the year. Everyone knew that the lost of Sepulveda would be a big blow to the team but we had no idea just how big of a loss it would be. The 3rd year guy out of Baylor had pretty nice numbers his rookie year. He averaged 42.4 yards per punt and dropped 28 inside the 20 yard line. It seemed like kick would launch off his foot as he showed the reason why he was picked so high. So the Steelers brought in veteran punters Mitch Berger and Paul Ernster to try to fill the void. Let’s just say the team would have been better off holding open tryouts in the middle of market square during lunch time.

The numbers help to back up that claim. Berger managed to average a not so bad 41.3 yards per punt. But he only put 19 of his 66 punts inside the 20 yard line.In all fairness to Berger i must mention that he did struggle with a hamstring injury for most of the season. But as Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin always says “Our standard of expectations will not change!” As for Ernster, who was punting for his 3rd team in as many years, he averaged 31.6 yards on his 12 total punts (although he did put 1/3 of those inside the 20).

Berger was bad, Ernster was clearly worst, so it was understandable that the 58,000 people that filled Heinz Field for the first pre-season game last week gave Sepulveda standing ovations after he blasted two early punts. With Sepulveda’s ability to change field position with one swing of his leg, his return will without question allow this defense to be more aggressive and take more chances. And as long as James Harrison doesn’t line up at long snapper again, Steelers fans won’t have to hold their collective breath. That is unless Ben Roethlisberger hurts his ankle on the last day of training camp.