Three years ago, Chris Boswell didn't have a job in the NFL. Now, he's one of the league's highest-paid kickers.
The Steelers assured that Thursday by signing Boswell to a five-year contract extension worth just under $20 million that will keep the Pro Bowl kicker with the team at least through the 2022 season.
And the Steelers weren't done there. Later in the day they announced inside linebacker Vince Williams also had been given a contract extension, this one for four years and worth just over $20 million.
Boswell's deal comes after a season in which the 27-year-old kicker set team records for field goals made (35) and points (142). He also became the first player since the 1970 NFL merger to kick three field goals as time expired. Those were included in his four overall game-winning kicks with less than two minutes remaining last season.
Williams, 28, became a full-time starter for the first time in 2017 and responded with a career-high 89 tackles to go along with eight sacks, which ranked second on the team.
Williams has now started 33 games in five seasons with the Steelers, who selected him in the sixth round of the 2013 draft. Last year, he not only became a full-time starter, he was asked to be the on-field play caller once Ryan Shazier was lost for the season on Dec. 4, 2017 at Cincinnati.
The Steelers want him to keep that role.
"Vince is the guy with the dot. He's going to be on the field the most," inside linebackers coach Jerry Olsavsky told me Thursday. "Vince is really a true professional. He just gets better all the time. If you would have told me as a rookie that he would have (eight) sacks, I would have said no way. That's the beauty of Vince. You can't count him out. He works so hard. He comes back every year better, which is a testament to who he is."
Boswell had been set to earn $2.9 million this season after the Steelers tendered him as a restricted free agent in the offseason. That was a raise from the $615,000 he made in 2017 and was twice his overall career earnings.
His contract average of nearly $4 million per season places him sixth in the league in kicker compensation, just behind Tennessee's Ryan Succop. New England's Stephen Gostkowski, Carolina's Graham Gano, Baltimore's Justin Tucker and Green Bay's Mason Crosby also will earn more.
Boswell made the Steelers' roster in a tryout in 2015 after former kicker Shaun Suisham was injured in the preseason. After trying Josh Scobee for four weeks, the Steelers had an open tryout and Boswell, who had been released by the Texans and Giants in the previous two seasons, won the job.
He has become one of the league's most reliable kickers, making 85 of 95 career field goals (89.5 percent) and 99 of 102 PATs.
Williams has made 278 tackles for the Steelers to go along with one interception, which also came last season.
He had been entering the final year of a three-year, $5.5 million deal that had him making a base salary of $2 million this season.