For the now former Pittsburgh Steelers place kicker, the third time wasn’t the charm in any sense of the word, as the fallout from the overtime loss to the Ravens sees the Steelers cut Josh Scobee and sign Chris Boswell.
Kicking has been an issue for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2015. First Shaun Suisham was lost in the NFL Hall of Fame Game. The Steelers responded by signing Garrett Hartley, but he too fell injured in the Steelers preseason game vs. the Bills.
- At that point, Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert decided not to leave anything to chance, and traded a 6th round pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars to get veteran kicker Josh Scobee.
Scobbe brought a solid, but not spectacular, record to Pittsburgh. Nonetheless, the moved seemed to be solid on paper. IN reality it was a disaster. In the Steelers opening loss to the New England Patriots, Scobee missed to field goals in a game that the Steelers ultimately lost by 7 points. Against the San Fransico 49ers, Scobee missed an extra point.
- And of course in the Steelers overtime loss to the Ravens, Scobee missed two field goals, either one of which would have iced the game for Pittsburgh.
It says here that Antonio Brown’s end zone drop, Michael Vick’s failed run and failed pass to Brown on 4th down were as big of factors in the loss as was Scobee’s missed kicks. But the bottom line is, you need to make those kicks, and Mike Tomlin clearly has no confidence that Scobee can do that.
Nor should he, as Scobee missed 5 of 17 kicks.
Welcome to Steelers Nation, Chris Boswell
Chris Boswell becomes the 4th kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers since the opened camp at St. Vincent’s College in July. Boswell has no NFL regular season kicking experience but spent 2014 training camp with the Houston Texans and even held a spot on their practice squad for a week.
Boswell spent 2015 training camp with the New York Giants. While the Giants left most of their preseason kicking chores to Josh Brown, Boswell did successfully make 4 of 4 field goals in their preseason finale.
- Chris Boswell played his college ball at Rice University in Texas.
The Steelers decision to cut John Scobee marks one of the rare occasions that the Steelers have changed kickers in the middle of the season. The Steelers last did so in 2010 when they cut Jeff Reed and signed Shaun Suisham. They also did so in 2002 when they cut Todd Peterson and signed Jeff Reed to replace him.
