It’s been several weeks since the Pittsburgh Steelers parted ways with veteran kicker Josh Scobee and yet he still remains a topic of discussion thanks to recent comments he made about his health during his final days with the team.
While it’s really irrelevant at this point as to what his injury status was when the Steelers released him after the team’s Week 4 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the money that is still owed to him is.
Being as Scobee was a vested veteran and on the Steelers 53-man roster for the first week of the 2015 NFL season, the $2.5 million he was scheduled to make this year was guaranteed, sort of. In other words, Scobee would need to file for termination pay in order to receive the remaining $1.91-plus million the Steelers still owed him at the time of his release. According to his agent Ken Harris in an email to Pro Football Talk, he intends to do just that.
Players can file for termination pay once during careers and thus it makes sense that Scobee would file his one and only time right now.
The Steelers traded a sixth-round draft pick to the Jacksonville Jaguars for Scobee just before the start of the 2015 regular season. The veteran kicker then proceeded to miss four field goals in the Steelers first four games of the season with two of them coming in the team’s week 4 loss to the Ravens.
Harris further explained Scobee’s recent comments about his health tp PFT.
“During his final week in Pittsburgh, the leg was really worn out since he had been kicking quite a bit extra in practice to get familiar with [a] young rookie holder,” Harris said via email. “He certainly didn’t hide it, and brought up that it needed a little rest. It’s no one’s fault that the short week [before the Thursday night game against the Ravens] exacerbated it into a strain, which he later rehabbed with a former Jags trainer for weeks after the release.”
Scobee currently remains unsigned.
