Titans sign kicker Greg Joseph from the Panthers practice squad

The Titans kicker situation has been a disaster all year. First, their long time steady veteran Ryan Succop dealt with an offseason knee injury that cost him most of camp. When Succop was cleared to return, he felt like the necessary “pop” wasn’t there in his leg and was put on IR to allow him to recover.

The team signed Cairo Santos just days before the start of the season and he was OK at first, but a costly miss in a two point loss to the Colts in Week 2 and then a disastrous 0 for 4 showing against the Bills in Week 5 led the Titans to bring in former Bears kicker Cody Parkey.

Parkey performed pretty well during his three game stint, hitting all three field goal attempts and going 5 for 6 in extra points.

The Titans brought Succop back off IR as soon as he was available and let Parkey go, but things have continued to go south for the veteran. Succop is 1 of 6 on field goal attempts, including having a very very low kick blocked against the Texans this past week and a three miss performance in a loss to the Panthers. He’s been good on extra points — something the Titans have kicked a lot of recently — going 24 of 25, but his inability to kick the ball into the end zone on kickoffs led the team to signing a second kicker in Ryan Santoso... who also proved unable to consistently kick touchbacks.

The Titans kickers as a group have combined to convert just 8 of 18 field goal attempts this year, a dreadful 44.4% rate, including going just 2 for 4 on kicks inside 39 yards. Succop, who set an NFL record by making 56 consecutive attempts inside 50 yards just two years ago, looks nothing like the guy that Titans fans had grown accustomed to since he signed with the team in 2014. It’s sad to see at this point.

That leads us to today and Greg Joseph, who will become the fifth kicker to appear on the Titans roster this year per Pro Football Talk.

Joseph kicked for the Browns most of last season, going 17 of 20 on field goals (85%) with a long of 51 yards. He struggled a little with extra points though, only converting 25 of 29 PATs (86.2%) which is well below league average.

Joseph, 25, was on the Panthers practice squad after getting beaten out for the Browns job by rookie Austin Seibert during preseason.

He was drafted in the XFL draft by the Seattle Dragons prior to joining the Panthers practice squad, but had yet to sign his contract so he was free to join Carolina when they came calling.

The South Africa native has a strong leg for kickoffs, forcing touchbacks on 47 of his 69 kicks (68%) last season. That’s significantly higher than the 49% touchback rate Titans kickers have produced this year.

Ryan Succop remains on the roster for now — the team released Santoso earlier in the day to free up the spot that Joseph is taking — so it will be interesting to see if the team chooses to continue to keep two kickers or if there is another shoe to drop here.

Maybe Joseph is just going to do kickoffs like Santoso. Maybe the Titans move Succop to IR and let Joseph take the full job. Maybe they just let Joseph do kickoffs and field goals while Succop takes care of the extra points. Who knows at this point, but this seems like a solid addition and maybe some new hope when the Titans line up for three over the next couple weeks.