The Pittsburgh Steelers placed kicker Chris Boswell on the team’s Reserve/Injured list Friday morning with an unspecified injury and signed free agent kicker Matt McCrane to the 53-man roster to take his place. At the conclusion of the team’s Friday practice, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin shed a little light on why the Boswell was placed on injured reserve.
Tomlin reportedly said that Boswell experienced some sort discomfort during or after the team’s Sunday road loss to the New Orleans Saints and that the kicker felt more of that after practicing on Thursday, according to Teresa Varley of steelers.com. The decision was obviously then made to place Boswell on the Reserve/Injured list and sign McCrane, who was in for a tryout just a few weeks ago, to take his place.
“We signed a new kicker today, Matt McCrane. Boz [Boswell] experienced some discomfort on Sunday in performing in the game,” Tomlin explained. “His usual work day is Thursday, so we waited to see the ramifications of that yesterday. He was a full participant yesterday, but felt some discomfort after. We felt it was necessary to make a move. We had worked Matt out a number of weeks ago, so it was a matter of a quick phone call and flying him.”
With all of the struggles Boswell has had so far this season when it comes to him missing kicks, one must wonder if he had a few bad practices on Wednesday and Thursday and that ultimately led to the Steelers making a move with him. Boswell did, however, make both of his field goal attempts and both extra point tries in the team’s Sunday loss to the Saints with his longest success coming from 49 yard out.
The Steelers new kicker, McCrane, will reportedly go to Heinz Field on Friday to get a feel for the conditions there such as the grass, wind, and etc. He will obviously handle all of the kicking duties on Sunday against the Bengals and the playoffs as well, should the Steelers make it into the postseason tournament.
