Steelers A to Z: In 4th stint with Steelers, Matthew Wright trying to find elusive NFL job security

Editor’s note: From now until the first practice of training camp at Saint Vincent College, TribLive is running through the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 90-man roster, looking at each player and assessing his outlook for the 2024 season. The breakdown will run in alphabetical order with at least two players each day between June 14 and July 25. Contract data courtesy spotrac.com.

PK Matthew Wright

Experience/age: Fourth season/28

Contract status: $1.055 million cap hit if he makes the team in 2024

The past: Wright has been around the NFL long enough to know to always keep his suitcase handy.

Since his arrival in 2019 as an undrafted free agent, Wright has signed four contracts with the Steelers. The latest came in April when he was added on a one-year deal for the NFL minimum for a player with his amount of service time.

Wright was cut in the 2019 training camp, then brought back to kick in three games for the Steelers in 2020 when Chris Boswell was slowed by an injury. Another injury to Boswell led to Wright returning for a four-game audition in 2022.

Wright also kicked for Jacksonville in 2021 and Kansas City in 2022. His NFL path last year was a circuitous one, going from Carolina to San Francisco to Atlanta to New England to Carolina again where he appeared in his only game, kicking in the regular season finale.

During his time with the Steelers, Wright converted 16 of 18 field-goal attempts, and he knocked through 21 of 24 attempts in 2021 with the Jaguars. He even was named AFC special teams player of the week during the sixth week of the 2021 season.

Before entering the NFL, Wright set the Central Florida record for most points in a career, field goals made and extra points.

New Steelers kicker Matthew Wright pic.twitter.com/ImoXFMOfyw

— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) November 9, 2022

2024 outlook: Wright knows the score with the Steelers, who have one of the league’s top kickers in Boswell. He signed with the team again knowing his best chance to return to the NFL is if he does well enough in the preseason that one of the other 31 teams takes notice.

With Boswell missing all the offseason workouts until mandatory minicamp, Wright got plenty of work in practice, particularly when the Steelers worked on the new NFL rules changes on kickoffs.

Wright’s track record could lead him to get a look with another team, and he has proven to be a quality backup plan in the event of another injury to Boswell.