The Pittsburgh Steelers wrapped up their 48th annual training camp Saturday and did so without extending a contract of any of their key players that are heading into their final year.
General manager Kevin Colbert has been asked several times over the course of the last two weeks about the status of talks with those players and on Friday he was asked by 93.7 The Fan if the team is currently in negotiations with anyone.
“No, uh-uh,” said Colbert. “We\’re still in a phase, and usually it takes a while into camp to get a feel for where we are from a depth standpoint. When you try to make those decisions going forward, you need to have a good handle on your team and traditionally I think it\’s right around this time where if we do progress, it will usually happen after this game and obviously it has to be before the start of the regular season.”
Steelers safety Ryan Clark is one of several players whose name always surfaces when talking about possible extensions and Colbert was asked specifically about him during the interview. However, as expected, the Steelers GM steered his lengthy response away from one player specifically.
“When you talk about any player and not just Ryan, I mean you have Brett Keisel who\’s up, you have Emmanuel Sanders who\’s up, you know you have some significant guys,” said Colbert. “Ziggy Hood\’s another guy that\’s up and you just look at signability going forward, what your options will be either on your own team or what the options are in predicted free agents from other teams being available and signable.
“You just try to blend it all in together and see if you can do anything that makes sense from a cap standpoint and see if you can make it fit. But until you get a feel for the whole team and how it\’s coming together, it\’s a little premature to do some things until we feel good about it. And like I said, we haven\’t entered into negotiations with anybody to this point.”
As for Clark, he was asked about his contract situation by Bob Pompeani of KDKA-TV on Saturday.
“There\’s been some things,” Clark said. “Obviously coach Tomlin and I talk about wanting to get it done and my agent has definitely called me and wants to get it done. I think these things just take time. I try not to focus on it.
“I honestly told my agent, \’Look, if there are no numbers to call me and tell me about, please don\’t call me. Just let me play football. Let me do my job.\’ I played in two contract years before this, so that\’s not really a situation that I\’m scared or nervous about being in, but I would like to know that this is where I\’m going to end my career at.”
Judging by the sound of things, Clark might find out as soon as next week.
