For most kickers, a six-field goal day kind of day comes around once in a career if you’re lucky. For Chris Boswell, it’s just another day at the office. Boswell again produced all of his team’s points, kicking six field goals in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 18-16 win over the Baltimore Ravens Sunday. Not only did it create a Steelers’ win, it made NFL history.
Boswell is the first kicker to have three separate six-field goal games in a regular-season career. He broke a six-way-tie with multiple other well-known players, including his Sunday counterpart Justin Tucker.
Entering today, he had been tied with Jim Bakken, Gary Anderson, John Carney, Jeff Wilkins, Tyler Bass, and Tucker. Today, he broke the tie.
And on a day where Tucker faltered. He missed two kicks in a two-point loss, the difference between a Pittsburgh victory and a Baltimore loss.
Boswell’s first six-field goal day came early in his Steelers’ career. He put six through the uprights in a win over the Cincinnati Bengals in 2016. It wasn’t responsible for all but most of the Steelers points that day in a 24-20 win. His other two have come this season, the season opener against the Atlanta Falcons and Week 11 versus the Ravens.
Factor in the postseason and Boswell has done it four times, going 6-of-6 to beat the Kansas City as the Steelers beat the Chiefs, 18-16, in a 2016 AFC Divisional Round game. No other kicker in history, regular season and playoffs combined, has done it more than twice. Boswell doubles them with four.
For further context, 44 NFL kickers have made six field goals in a game. Only seven of them have done it twice. Boswell’s now done it four times.
After going without a field goal attempt last weekend, Boswell has resumed the pace needed to break David Akers’ record for most field goals made in a season. Akers booted 44 in 2011. Boswell is on track to blow that number out of the water with 49 in 2024.
Of course, it’s not a stat the Steelers want to celebrate too much. A trusty option like Boswell has been critical to their success not just this year but throughout his career, but there comes a point where Pittsburgh needs to put the ball in the end zone. Their red zone offense is pitiful, one of the worst in the league, and will hold the Steelers back unless the numbers turn around. But for Boswell, he’s already made history and is on track to do even more in what could wind up as one of the greatest seasons an NFL kicker has ever had.
