Bengals Waive Place Kicker Clint Stitser And Wide Receiver Shay Hodge

At the same time they announced the signing of four restricted free agents and five exclusive-rights free agents, the Cincinnati Bengals waived place kicker Clint Stitser on Friday. Signed to replace Aaron Pettrey (who replaced Mike Nugent for two games), Stitser converted seven of eight field goals during the final five regular season games for the Bengals last season. His four field goals against the Cleveland Browns largely won the game for the Bengals on December 19, 2010 (actually it did win the game).

Just as impressive, Stitser converted three field goals against the New Orleans Saints, including a 47-yarder with 4:30 left in the game that gave the Bengals a three-point lead. Unfortunately the awesome upset to-be was never realized with Drew Brees' three-yard touchdown to Marcus Colston with :34 seconds left in the game. Johnathan Joseph was covering. Just saying.

More importantly, Stitser's release seems to promote the idea that Mike Nugent, most likely the Bengals place-kicker in 2011, is fully recovered after knee surgery to repair the torn ACL he suffered against the Indianapolis Colts during an onside kick.

The team also waived backup, backup, backup, backup practice squad wide receiver Shay Hodge.