Chris Boswell has been Mr. Automatic for years in Pittsburgh, dating back to his last down season in 2018. For various reasons, that hasn’t been the case this year, and it nearly cost the Steelers big time against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night when his extra point attempt failed.
Ben Roethlisberger reached out to his former teammate to encourage him and offer advice after a tough few weeks.
“Boz is automatic, and I know he is going through some stuff right now,” Roethlisberger said via his Footbahlin podcast. “I talked to him after the game and just encouraged him and tried to give him some upbeat advice on just staying confident. ‘Cause I know right now it can be hard and he can lose some confidence right now, but just encouraging him that at some point they’re gonna need him and just to keep doing his thing.”
The official score ended up marking that missed extra point down as a block. They deemed that one of the Ravens barely got a finger on it to affect the path of the ball in the air. Regardless, that makes three field goals that Boswell has missed over the last three weeks. This is the fourth-lowest field goal percentage of his career, and his lowest since 2022.
Some of the misses this season were other blocks, and he even slipped on the miserable Acrisure Stadium sod for one of them. Many of the issues have been outside of his control, so it’s hard to fault him too much for the down season.
What’s more concerning is the recent trend. He missed one against the Cleveland Browns from 54 yards out and a chip shot from 37 yards out against the Lions. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that he also nailed an impressive 57-yarder against the Ravens on Sunday night.
Against the best defense in the league, the Steelers will likely need at least a Boswell field goal or two if they want to win the game and advance in the playoffs.
Roethlisberger hinted at some stuff going on in Boswell’s personal life. I don’t want to speculate what that might be, but kickers already deal with such a heavy mental game. Slumps can snowball, and that’s the biggest concern here. Hopefully, Roethlisberger’s words of encouragement got through to him.