Sure, it was only the first day of 2014 OTA practices for the Pittsburgh Steelers on Tuesday, but that first day was chock-full of good news nonetheless. There’s even good news to report about kicker Shaun Suisham.
According to Chris Bradford of the Beaver County Times, Suisham was good from 60 yards out during the Tuesday practice. He did, however, apparently miss from 70 yards after being urged by head coach Mike Tomlin to attempt one from that distance, but that’s not surprising at all.
2014 is a contract year for Suisham, whose career-long is 52 yards. Last season the Bowling Green product was 30-of-32 on all field goal attempts with both of his misses unfortunately coming in the 21-18 loss to the Oakland Raiders in Week 8.
Currently, Suisham is the only kicker on the Steelers 90 man roster, so one would think that another one might be added prior to training camp in order to divvy up the workload.
Strangely enough, Suisham was initially signed by the Steelers as undrafted free agent in 2005 to be a camp leg, but was easily beat out by then-incumbent Jeff Reed and ultimately waived prior to the start of that season.
After tours of duty with the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys, Suisham was signed by the Steelers to replace a struggling Reed midway through the 2010 season and he’s retained the job ever since.
