Well, it’s June 29 and we are now in “list season” as we count down the days until 2022 NFL training camps get underway. With that warning now out of the way, John Breech of CBS Sports released his top 10 kickers in the NFL entering 2022 rankings on Wednesday and not shockingly, Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Chris Boswell is near the top.
Breech has Boswell ranked second overall in his top 10 behind only Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker. Below is a snippet of what Breech wrote about Boswell in his post.
“In 2020, he hit 19 of 20 field goals, which is even more impressive when you consider that his only miss came from 59 yards out.
Boswell was one of the NFL’s best kickers during his first three years in the league (2015-17), and he’s returned to that form over the past three years, which seems to indicate that the 2018 season was an anomaly. One other reason Boswell is ranked so high is because he’s never missed a single field goal in the playoffs. Over the course of his career, Boswell is 16 of 16, which is the second-most field goals in postseason history without a miss.
One reason it can be difficult to rank kickers is because many of them are kicking in different environments, and you could argue that no one has to kick in a more difficult environment than Boswell. Despite that, he’s put-up impressive numbers over his career, which is another reason why he’s so high on this list.”
Well, no lies detected in that summary and I’m sure there are not many reading this post who would disagree with Breech ranking Boswell second overall. Most of those who might disagree with Breech’s Boswell ranking would likely only do so because they believe the Steelers kicker should be ranked ahead of Tucker.
Boswell has done an amazing job when it comes to elevating his overall status as an NFL kicker and especially when you remember back to the disastrous 2018 season that he had. That season, Boswell, a former undrafted free agent out of Rice, made just 13 of his 20 total field goal attempts. Additionally, he missed five of his 48 total extra point attempts in 2018. Since then, Boswell has missed just seven of 91 total field goal attempts during regular season action. He’s also missed just six extra points out of 95 total attempts since 2018.
Over the course of the last three NFL seasons, 28 total kickers have attempted 50 more field goal attempts. Boswell is ranked third overall in accuracy of those 28 kickers. The two kickers with a better make percentage on that list of 28 players are Tucker and Younghoe Koo of the Atlanta Falcons.
Boswell is now in the final year of his current contract. He’s also currently ranked as the ninth highest paid kicker in the NFL as we get closer to training camp. Because of both of those things, it’s reasonable to expect that the Steelers will sign Boswell to a contract extension later this summer and one that might just result in him being the highest paid in the NFL at his position.
