The Pittsburgh Steelers find that their 2016 season ended a bit prematurely, and are undergoing the exit meeting process a couple weeks sooner than they would have liked. Never the less, what must be done must be done, and we are now at the time of the year where we close the book on one season and look ahead to the next.
While we might not know all the details about what goes on between Head Coach Mike Tomlin and his players during these exit meetings, we do know how we would conduct those meetings if they were let up to us. So here are the Depot’s exit meetings for the Steelers’ roster following the 2016 season.
Player: Chris Boswell
Position: Kicker
Experience: 2 Years
For a player that they signed on a tryout in the middle of the season, the Steelers seemed to be pretty pleased with Chris Boswell, their latest kicker, through two seasons. It should be said, however, that that is also how they found their last two long-term answers at the kicking position.
The curious thing is that the Steelers didn’t really require much of Boswell for the majority of the season, as they only asked him to attempt 25 field goals in 15 games. He did miss one game with an injury, for which they had to sign a kicker off the street, and said kicker did his job in that one.
Of his 25 field goal attempts, however, Boswell did miss four of them, with two coming from beyond 50 yards and another from beyond 40. Two of the misses came in the regular-season loss to the Patriots, and another came against the Cowboys. The other was against the Eagles.
He was only asked to attempt more than two field goals on four separate occasions during the regular season. He attempted five and made three against the Patriots, but he made team history when he went six for six against the Bengals for the most field goals made in a game.
Boswell was even better in the playoffs, as he made all eight of his field goal attempts. Six of those came in the victory over the Chiefs, which broke an NFL record for the most made field goals in a single postseason game. Combined with his performance last year, he is 15 for 15 during the postseason in five games so far in his career.
But he did miss not one, but two point-after attempts during the playoffs, which should obviously not go ignored. He only missed one during his rookie season, but including postseason play, he has now missed three in 32 total games played.
One area of improvement has been on kickoffs, as he recorded a touchback on 61.3 percent of his attempts on kickoffs in 2016, 49 out of 80. He only recorded a touchback on 26 of 74 kickoffs in 2015, just 35.1 percent. He did send a couple out of bounds for a penalty, and had a terrible onside kick attempt, but he also saved a touchdown.
