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90 In 30: Steelers 2024 Training Camp Preview Series — Matthew Wright, Tyler Matakevich

By Dave Bryan

Posted on July 20, 2024 at 7:15 am

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2024 offseason practices concluded in the middle of June. Next up is the team’s annual training camp, which gets underway in the latter part of July at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. Ahead of Steelers training camp, we will preview the team’s offseason roster three players at a time as part of a multi-post series. This Steelers roster preview, which includes outlooks for every player, will be done alphabetically by last name to make it easy to follow. This series figures to exceed 90 players this year as the team can carry 91 players in total during the offseason due to the allowance of one international player designation.

The final of players we will preview ahead of the Steelers’ 2024 training camp are Matthew Wright and Tyler Matakevich.

K Matthew Wright: The Steelers signed Wright to a one-year contract for the minimum for a player with three credited seasons back in April. The base amount of his deal is $1.055 million, and he did not receive a signing bonus so there is no guaranteed money in the contract.

Wright has been a member of the Steelers several times over the course of his career, with his last stint coming in 2022 when he was asked to fill in for several games for a then-injured Chris Boswell.

Following the 2019 NFL Draft, Wright originally signed with the Steelers as an undrafted free agent out of Central Florida. In addition to his several stints with the Steelers over the past few years, Wright has also spent time with the Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons, New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers.

For his NFL career to date, Matthew Wright is 40-of-47 on field goal attempts and 35-of-37 on extra point tries. His career long is 59 yards, and he is 6-of-9 on attempts of 50 yards or longer.

Outlook: The Steelers signed Wright to give the team an extra leg throughout the offseason. He has served in this role as a member of the Steelers before, and assuming he stays on the roster throughout the preseason, we should see him kick some during a few of those contests.

There’s no reason to think that Wright will threaten Boswell for his job. Barring an injury to Bowell occurring, Wright should ultimately be let go prior to the 2024 regular season getting underway.

The Steelers obviously like Wright quite a bit, so should a need for a kicker arise during the regular season for whatever reason, he will likely be the first one they call if he isn’t under contract with another team.

ILB Tyler Matakevich: The Steelers signed Matakevich to a one-year contract for the veteran minimum in the middle of July. Originally selected by the Steelers in the seventh round of the 2016 NFL Draft out of Temple, Matakevich played out his rookie contract in Pittsburgh.

In 2020, Matakevich left the Steelers for the Buffalo Bills as he was signed away as an unrestricted free agent. He initially signed a two-year, $7.15 million contract with the Bills. Matakevich agreed to terms on a one-year contract extension with the Bills in March 2021. In March 2023, Matakevich signed a one-year, $2.5-million contract with the Bills.

Mostly used as a special team player throughout his NFL career, Matakevich has played in 129 regular-season games in his first eight NFL seasons. He has registered 132 total tackles with most of those coming on special teams. He also has recorded an interception and 4 passes defensed for his NFL career.

In total, Matakevich has logged 283 defensive snaps in regular season play and 2,564 more on special teams. He will turn 32 years old in December.

Outlook: Matakevich has stuck in the NFL for eight seasons due to his solid play on special teams. While he can and has played inside linebacker some throughout his NFL career, it usually only happens in emergency situations and especially in the last few seasons.

The Steelers are likely to carry five inside linebackers on their 53-man roster to start the 2024 regular season. Several of those spots are seemingly already spoken for in the forms of Patrick Queen, Elandon Roberts, Cole Holcomb, and rookie Payton Wilson, a third-round selection this year. Holcomb, however, is coming off a 2023 knee injury so it will be important to see just how healthy he is at the start of training camp.

Matakevich will have more than a fighter’s chance at the fifth inside linebacker spot on the depth chart, assuming that’s how many are ultimately kept. His competition in training camp and the preseason figures to be third-year ILB Mark Robinson and rookie undrafted free agent ILB Jacoby Windmon. Matakevich is a much better special teams player than those two, however.

When the dust settles after the preseason, it could go either way with Matakevich. That said, he will be a hard out if he remains healthy, mainly due to his special teams abilities.

Previous Posts In This Series:

Related Items:2024 Training Camp, Matthew Wright, Tyler Matakevich

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