As expected, the Pittsburgh Steelers signed free agent kicker Sam Sloman to their offseason roster on Thursday. It’s a one-year deal for Sloman. To make room for Sloman on the 90-man roster the team waived defensive tackle Demarcus Christmas as injured. Christmas will revert to the Steelers’ Reserve/Injured list after he clears waivers.
As previously reported Thursday morning, Sloman, a former seventh-round pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 2020, appeared in eight games as a rookie. One of those came as a member of the Tennessee Titans late in the season. He made 10-of-13 field goal attempts with a long of 42 yards last season, and went 23-of-26 on point-after-tries. A Miami Ohio product, Sloman was 49-of-62 on field goal attempts in his college career. He also made 112 of his 115 extra point attempts in college, as well.
After the Rams released him, the Tennessee Titans signed Sloman late in the season. He kicked the game-winner for the Titans as time expired in Week 17 and made both of his field goal attempts, 47 and 37 yards, respectively, and all five extra points in the team’s victory over the Houston Texans.
The one-year contract that Sloman signed with the Steelers should total $780,000 and thus not impact the Rule of 51 for salary cap accounting purposes.
As for Christmas, who was originally selected in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks, he was signed by the Steelers to their practice squad last November and remained there the rest of the season. The team re-signed Christmas to a Reserve/Futures contract after the 2020 season ended. The former Florida State defensive tackle failed to appear in a game with the Seahawks before the team parted ways with him. Listed at 6’3″, 302 pounds, Christmas recorded 77 total tackles in his college career. He also had seven tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks at Florida State.
