Long snappers’ value is hard to measure or ignore
Holba’s size, skills made him logical pick in sixth round
For all his brilliance and methodology in winning four Super Bowls, Chuck Noll disdained the idea of specialization. In particular, the longtime Steelers coach scoffed at the idea of wasting a roster spot on a long snapper. So what happened? The Steelers lost a 1988 game in Cleveland when Hall of Fame center Mike Webster, whose bent fingers were too banged up to long snap, fired two snaps over the head of punter Harry Newsome.
Webster was one of four players Noll used as the long snapper that year, causing Newsome to have an NFLrecord six punts blocked, even though he led the league with a 45.4-yard average on the punts that weren’t blocked.
In a 2008 game against the New York Giants, after long snapper Greg Warren was injured with what was eventually diagnosed as a torn anterior cruciate ligament, linebacker James Harrison volunteered to snap for punts. Harrison had done some long snapping in 2003 when he played for the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe.
In the fourth quarter, Harrison’s first and only snap sailed over the head of punter Mitch Berger through the end zone, resulting in a safety that tied the score. The ensuing free kick gave the Giants good field position and led to the winning score, one of only four losses the Steelers endured that year.
And everyone is aghast the Steelers drafted a long snapper, Colin Holba, in the sixth round?
Coach Mike Tomlin and general manager Kevin Colbert know full well the inherent pratfalls of what can happen when you don’t have one.
“Not many long snappers come along that we believe are draftable,” Colbert said. “New England took a kid a few years back [Joe Cardona in 2015] who is their starting long snapper. And, when we see one, we want to add him in the mix just like we would any other position and provide competition for Greg [Warren]. Colin certainly fit that bill, and that’s why we pulled the trigger when we did.”
Long snappers are usually signed as undrafted rookie free agents. Rarely are they drafted. Sometimes, they are drafted because they also play another position. But Holba is only the fifth known pure long snapper to be drafted by an NFL team, although, as a sign of the times, the second in the past three years.
With Warren, 36, entering his 14th NFL season, the Steelers figured it was time to make sure they had another competent long snapper on board. So, even though they signed Warren to a two-year contract in February, they used a sixthround pick (No. 213 overall) to draft Holba, a high school quarterback who didn’t play football his senior season.
“Being at a specialist position, very rarely do guys get drafted, so just for this to happen is beyond my wildest imagination,” Holba said. “I can’t wait to get to Pittsburgh and start working.”
Holba was a manager for the Louisville baseball team who failed the first time he tried to walk on the Cardinals football team as a long snapper. He was valedictorian of his senior class at Eastern High School in Louisville and came by his new profession somewhat accidentally. When he was a fifth-grade quarterback, Holba said he was the only player strong enough to throw a football between his legs upside down. A long snapper was born. “Some people don’t understand the role,” Holba said. “Your role is to be perfect on fourth downs and when the game is on the line, and I just told everybody that I’m excited to be a long snapper. I’ve been trying to perfect this craft over the last four years in college and trying to continue to do it in the NFL.”
Colbert said most college long snappers are walk-ons who are not very big. The reason is because, unlike the NFL, long snappers cannot be contacted by a defensive player until at least one second after the snap in kicking situations.
“So a lot of the college snappers are these 6-1, 215220 guys, which really would have a hard time snapping and blocking in our league,” Colbert said. “Colin, he is really 6-3, 248, and he has some coverage ability, not that he will be the first line of defense. But he has the size to go along with the snapping. Not many come along that are that size who are competent snappers. It’s really a supply-and-demand issue.”
And, if Holba doesn’t work out, it won’t be the first time a sixth-round pick didn’t make the team, Colbert said. Especially a Super Bowl-contending team.
“We have drafted guys in the sixth and seventh rounds that don’t make the team and maybe they are practice-squad types,” Colbert said. “If he makes it, he makes it. If not, I don’t know if we would have a guy on the practice squad, but we certainly just wanted to have that option.”