Aug 5th 2008 12:20AM by JJ Cooper (author feed)
Filed under: Steelers, AFC North
It’s not a good time to be a punter looking for an NFL job.
With the help of NFL Europe roster exemptions, most NFL teams used to carry two punters through most of the preseason. Sometimes it was to give the starting punter some competition, but often it was just to help keep the starting punter from tiring out his leg.
But now that teams are facing a hard cap of 80 players (there’s no NFL Europe to give certain players exemptions), the second-string preseason punter is a rare breed. Only 12 teams have brought a second punter to camp. So when a team like the Steelers starts trolling for a punter the good news is that there are a number of punters out on the street looking for work (like Paul Ernster, who the Steelers have signed). The bad news is that there aren’t a whole lot of punters to evaluate during the preseason in actual game action.
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