Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin confirmed the obvious on Friday and that’s that Chris Boswell will remain the team’s kicker through at least this coming Sunday’s home game against the New England Patriots.
At the conclusion of Friday’s practice, Tomlin explained what all transpired this past week at the kicker position and why the decision was made to keep Boswell, who has missed six field goals and five extra points so far this season.
“Like I outlined in the press conference, we felt like it was fair for all parties involved to have our kicker earn his way into the stadium this weekend and we didn’t care who that was,” Tomlin said on Friday. “And we understood that Boz [Boswell] was a candidate in that mix. We brought in two credible guys, we kicked those credible guys and Boz and we were comfortable with what we saw from Boz.
“And so he needed a little something. It’s good for him. It created a little adversity, he had an opportunity to deliver to an acceptable level, his teammates had an opportunity to watch him deliver to an acceptable level and we’re extremely comfortable with him as our kicker going in. Like I said during the week, I wasn’t interested in an easy decision or shooting a hostage, or anything of that nature, or assigning blame. We’re all responsible for our current position and so we approached it in that way and we’re comfortable where we are.”
The Steelers had brought in free agent kickers Kai Forbath and Matt McCrane for tryouts this past week and while the former reportedly had a good showing, the decision was obviously made to continue on with Boswell for the time being. The Steelers did, however, bring former kicker Shaun Suisham in this week to work with Boswell.
Forbath, by the way, signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Friday and he’ll kick for them Sunday in their game against the Washington Redskins in place of injure kicker Josh Lambo.
