Steelers cut Scobee, sign free agent kicker Boswell

Eight weeks, four kickers.

Two days after Josh Scobee missed a pair of field goals 83 seconds apart that contributed to a 23-20 overtime loss to the Baltimore Ravens, the Steelers released the veteran kicker and signed Chris Boswell.

Boswell follows Shaun Suisham, Garrett Hartley and Scobee as Steelers kickers since Aug. 9. Suisham, who was embarking on his sixth season as Steelers kicker, tore his ACL during the preseason opener while trying to make a tackle and was lost for the season. Hartley injured his hamstring three weeks later on a kickoff.

That convinced the Steelers to trade a sixth-round pick to Jacksonville for Scobee, who missed two field goals in the regular-season opener and two more Thursday. He also missed an extra point Sept. 20.

That's five missed kicks in 17 tries in four games. Suisham missed five kicks in his previous 152 attempts covering 33 games.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Boswell spent part of training camp with the New York Giants.

He was undrafted after kicking for three seasons at Rice and tried out for the Houston Texans in 2014 before being cut.

Boswell made all four of his field-goal attempts and had 2 of 6 kickoffs go for touchbacks during this preseason for New York. Last preseason for Houston, Boswell was 2 for 2 on field goals, but just 2 of 10 kickoffs went for touchbacks.

His preseason career long is 41 yards, but Boswell had 13 successful kicks in college of 50 yards or more. As a senior in 2013 for Rice, he had 54 touchbacks on 70 kickoffs.

Scobee missed 49- and 41-yard field goals in the fourth quarter Thursday in the loss to the Ravens. He was 3 for 3 on field goals from 39 yards and under but 3 of 7 from 40 yards and beyond.

After the game Thursday, a sullen Scobee said he wasn't going to let himself think about the possibility of being cut for the first time in his career — he had been with the Jaguars for 11 years after they drafted him in the fifth round in 2004.

“I feel like I let the team down, and it's not something that I ever want to remember doing,” Scobee said early Friday morning. “It's a bad feeling.”

After answering questions from two waves of media scrums, Scobee spent several minutes alone at his locker.

Around the room, teammates supported him, saying it was a team loss and that plays on offense or defense were there to be made.

Coach Mike Tomlin's decision to go for it on two fourth-down conversions inside the Baltimore 40 in overtime — in lieu of a Scobee field-goal attempt — proved he had lost confidence in the 33-year-old.

Tomlin said after the game he would “have to turn the stones over.” That came by way of tryouts Saturday.

Boswell, 24, won out. He will make his regular-season debut Oct. 12 on a Monday night in San Diego against the Chargers.

Chris Adamski is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.