FanHouse Paul Ernster

If Paul Ernster ever punts in the NFL again, it will be because he's managed to make every last copy of his disastrous game against the Bengals disappear (and it's not happening Paul, as I have socked away a copy you can't have).

But thankfully, the Steelers have fixed one of their worst decisions of the year by cutting the worst punter the team has employed in decades. Pittsburgh re-signed Mitch Berger, who had punted for the first nine games of the season before the Steelers decided his pulled hamstring was limiting him too much.

Punting with a pulled left hamstring, Berger averaged 36.3 yards per punt against the Redskins. That was five yards off of his season average, which was enough to convince the Steelers that they had to make a change. All that was good and logical, but by picking Ernster, they found the one punter who couldn't outkick a one-legged man. Ernster averaged only 31.3 in his three games. In 12 punts, he never booted one longer than 43 yards, and his finale against the Bengals set new standards for awful. Five punts, none longer than 34 yards and an average of 28.4 yards per punt. It's safe to say that your average college punter can do better.

There's no word whether Berger is fully recovered from his hamstring injury, but even if he's not, he's proven he'll be a better choice than Ernster.

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.

If you thought the Steelers special teams were bad last year, just wait until this year.

Punter Daniel Sepulveda, the team's fourth-round pick in 2008, tore the ACL in his plant leg on one of the first days of camp and will miss the entire season. Although he tailed off a little at the end, Sepulveda did average 42.4 yards per punt gross and 37.9 net, with a knack for putting punts inside the 20-yard line.

This is the second time that Sepulveda has blown out the same knee, which has to be some cause of concern. It will also bring on more criticism from those who think the Steelers shouldn't have drafted a punter so early (Pittsburgh traded a fourth and sixth-round pick to move up to get Sepulveda). Of course, considering the Steelers bad luck in drafting fourth rounders in recent years, they're haven't been a whole lot of better picks to compare to him.

If there's a bright spot, it's better to lose a punter now when you have time to sort through various punters instead of during the season when you could lose a game or two while looking for a punter who's worth keeping. The Steelers signed Paul Ernster, who punted last year for Denver and Cleveland, averaging only 36.0 yard gross and 35.6 yards net in limited action. Ernster's stats were better the year before when punting in the kicker's heaven that is Denver, but overall he's what you would expect to find sitting on the waiver wire. He'll get the first chance, but expect Pittsburgh to keep an eye on which punters hit the waiver wire in the next month, because right now, Pittsburgh can add poor punting to poor coverage teams as a cause for concern.

To get you ready for week 17, FanHouse is previewing all 16 NFL games. Here is the Minnesota Vikings/Denver Broncos preview.

2007 Records:

Minnesota Vikings: 8-7 (2nd in NFC North)
Denver Broncos: 6-9 (2nd in AFC West)

Last Week:

Redskins 32, Vikings 21
Chargers 23, Broncos 3

When the Vikings have the ball: There's no secret about what it takes to beat the Broncos this season. Run the ball until the final whistle and you're going to give yourself a healthy chance at winning the game. That shouldn't be a problem for the Vikes. With Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor, Minnesota is well suited to letting their running game do all the heavy lifting. Yet last week against the Redskins they threw the ball 41 times, a dubious idea when the erratic Tarvaris Jackson is your quarterback. Jackson has shown flashes this year but they are almost always because the run game has set him up to make big plays downfield. The Broncos have tried eight and nine men in the box to stop the run, to no effect, and should try the same this weekend. Unless the Vikings pin all of their hopes to the aerial game again, they won't have any more success defensively.