One of them is Jeff Reed. In the wake of Scobee’s Thursday night meltdown — he missed two fourth-quarter field goals that would’ve put the Steelers up by a six in a game they lost by three in overtime — Reed made appearances on two Pittsburgh radio stations stumping for his old job.
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On 93.7 The Fan, Reed, who won two Super Bowls with the Steelers and is the franchise’s second all-time points leader but hasn’t kicked in four years, said he’s reached out to GM Kevin Colbert “probably 10 times.” No dice.
“And I said, well, the only way to erase the question mark is to give me a chance — and I don’t mean just throw me right in the game," Reed said. “You can at least try me out. If I suck, then don’t sign me.”
“I may not be in shape like a 24 or 25-year-old that I was. But, I’ve always been a bigger guy that was just strong and not built like a kicker, and I still consider myself that, and the bottom line is I can kick a football…The only thing that really matters is I can make a field goal.”
The other person calling for ol’ Skippy, at some point in the last 12 hours, wrote a song about it. It is really something.
With regards to some of those lyrics — the paper towel dispenser incident, for example — Reed says he’s taking “a different approach to life” that includes 72-hour work weeks. He’s also said that getting tossed out of the Hall of Fame game in August was a mixup.
“I kicked about seven, eight weeks ago,” Reed said. “I train three days a week — not as much as I’d like to, but when you work 9 to 9, you kind of like to sleep here and there.”
You know what? Sold. Root for chaos.
Scobee, for the time being, still has a job. He’s 6 of 10 on field goals for the season.
“I feel like I let the team down, and that’s something I don’t ever want to remember doing,” he said after the game. “It’s a bad feeling. It was a hard-fought game on both sides, and I wish I’d been able to come through, but it just wasn’t my night.
Coach Mike Tomlin was non-committal about trying to find a new kicker. “We have to turn the stones over,” he said. “We have to find a way to win games. Obviously, that’s an element of it.”