FOXBOROUGH, Mass. - The New England Patriots placed veteran punter Josh Miller on the reserve/injured list today with a shoulder injury. Miller will miss the remainder of the 2006 season.

Miller, 36, is in his 11th NFL season and has played in 164 career games for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1996-2003) and New England Patriots (2004-06). The 6-foot-4-inch, 225-pound punter has played in 36 games since joining the Patriots prior to the 2004 season and ranks second in team history with a 43.6-yard gross punting average over that span. With New England, he has recorded 175 punts for 7,628 yards (43.6 avg.) and has placed 53 punts inside the 20-yard line with 16 touchbacks. In his NFL career, Miller has punted 747 times for 32,176 yards (43.1 avg.) and has recorded 247 punts inside the 20-yard line with 83 touchbacks. The University of Arizona product began his professional career in 1994 with the Baltimore Stallions of the Canadian Football League and led the CFL in punting in each of his two seasons in Baltimore. Miller joined the Steelers prior to the start of the 1996 season after spending the spring of 1996 with the Seattle Seahawks. He played in Pittsburgh for eight seasons and recorded a gross average of 41.0 yards or higher in each campaign, including a career-high 45.2-yard average in 1999, a figure that ranked second in the AFC and third in the NFL. Last season with the Patriots, Miller finished fourth in the NFL with a 45.1-yard average, a figure that ranks as the second-highest single-season punting average in team history (Tom Tupa, 45.8, 1997).