Pittsburgh Steelers Pass on Kickers in Draft, Good News for Suisham

Wallaceburg’s Shaun Suisham might not have had the top stats in the league last season for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but it looks like he’ll have less competition heading into training camp this summer as the Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t draft a kicker in the NFL Draft.

Many analysts were predicting the Steelers would take a kicker early in the draft to seriously challenge Suisham, who is under contract with Pittsburgh for next season, heading into camp.

The Wallaceburg kicker, who has also played for the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys in his career, played all 16 regular season games for the Steelers last season going 23-for-31 in field goal attempts, for a 74.2 percentage.

Suisham was a perfect 36-for-36 in extra points.

The league average for field goal percentage last season was 83.1, while Suisham scored just over the league average in points. He had 105 points last year, while the league average for kickers was 100.

Suisham struggled in the 40-49 yard range going 6-for-11 but was solid at other distances, and even hit a career long 51-yard field goal in week 15 against the San Francisco 49ers.

Without any kickers drafted by the Steelers in the NFL draft, they would have to bring in a kicker on a tryout contract for training camp to challenge Suisham, which they likely will.

The Steelers selected guard David DeCastro from Stanford in the first round, 24th overall.