The Steelers have a lot of extension candidates to consider, but K Chris Boswell needs to be right at the top, Mark Kaboly believes. While Boswell didn’t have his best season, he remains generally reliable, and has increased his range. Undoubtedly a top kicker over a period of years, he is due for a new contract.
Last offseason in training camp, Boswell, with two years left on his contract, sat out some training camp practices. Nobody really seemed to notice or care until somebody mentioned he wasn’t kicking for a reason. But now that he is on the Steelers’ typical extension timeline, there shouldn’t be any issues.
“Right now, what you do is you look at who the highest-paid kicker is right now, you’re like, ‘Okay, let’s pay [Chris Boswell] more than that’, and that sucker should be done”, Kaboly said on 93.7 The Fan. “The first one done should be Chris Boswell. … That’s number one on the list. But that’s still [down the road]. They’ve got to get through the draft and free agency and all that stuff before they do that”.
The Steelers almost universally work out their extensions in the later part of the offseason, with the sweet spot for less contentious negotiations being between minicamp and training camp. Boswell should hopefully fall in that category this offseason, provided Pittsburgh doesn’t excessively weigh his recent misses.
Boswell caused some to grow concerned about him after missing a kick in each of his final three regular season games. He missed from 30-39 in Week 16, then from 50-plus in Week 17, and an extra point in the season finale. Overall, however, he went 27-for-32 on the season for an 84.4-percent success rate. And he missed just the lone extra point on the year.
After making 13 field goals of 50-plus yards in 2024, Boswell finished last year 9-for-11 in that range. Uncharacteristically, he went 2-for-4 from 30-39, though that included a miss blamed on the field. And LS Christian Kuntz took the blame for another miss.
In the season finale, Chris Boswell’s missed extra point set up a situation in which the Ravens only needed a field goal to win—not just tie—the game. And Baltimore set itself up for a modest game-winning field goal attempt, only to miss it. It was only later that scorekeepers credited the miss to a block.
As for salary, Chris Boswell doesn’t even rank in the top 10 in kicker salary right now. In 2022, he signed a four-year, $20 million extension with the Steelers that runs through 2026. Since then, 10 kickers have pushed the upper limits of the NFL’s kicker salaries. Nearly all are within around $500,000 of him, but two—Harrison Butker and Jake Elliott—are making at least $6 million per season. Butker at $6.4 million per year is the highest-paid kicker in NFL history.
Are the Steelers willing to pay Boswell $6.5 million and make him the highest-paid kicker again? At the time of his last extension, he tied with Justin Tucker for the highest salary. He is set to turn 36, but you can still kick when you’re old, and his range has only improved over time. The beauty of kickers is that, even at the upper limit, it won’t set you back too much. $6.5 million is, like, your third wide receiver or a really good nickel defender.
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