Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert will be leaving soon for the NFL Scouting Combine and as he does every year, he sat down with the local media to answer questions about the team.
According to Scott Brown of ESPN.com, Colbert said the organization has begun preliminary contract extension talks with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his camp and he expects a deal will get done at some point.
“When you have two parties interested in getting the same goal achieved it usually goes quicker than not,” Colbert said.
Colbert also said that Roethlisberger is getting better with age in his opinion and that he still has room to improve.
Colbert was also asked about soon-to-be unrestricted free agent linebacker Jason Worilds on Wednesday and the longtime general manager indicated that the organization feels that the former second-round draft pick had a good season in 2014 and that they hope to be able to re-sign him. Will Graves of the Associated Press reports that Colbert didn’t rule out using a franchise or transition tag on Worilds, but that it may depend on what the cap hit is that comes along with it. The team hopes to avoid that route altogether by getting a long-term deal done with Worilds ahead of that. With the deadline now less than a month away, we should know very soon if the Steelers will be able to accomplish that.
“He’s still a young player,” Colbert said, according to Mike Prisuta of DVE Radio. “He’s probably still an ascending player. I don’t think you’ve seen the best of Jason.”
As far as the Steelers offseason salary cap situation goes, Colbert sounded positive.
“I think we’ll be in a manageable area,” said Colbert. “I don’t think we’ll have to do as much work to get into compliance”
Clarification: Steelers have started contract negotiations with Roethlisberger camp. There was confusion over what KC said.
— Scott Brown (@ScottBrown_ESPN) February 10, 2015
Colbert on Worilds: "He's still a young player. He's probably still an ascending player. I don't think you've seen the best of Jason."
— Mike Prisuta (@DVEMike) February 10, 2015
Colbert on salary cap situation: "I think we'll be in a manageable area. I don't think we'll have to do as much work to get into compliance"
— Mike Prisuta (@DVEMike) February 10, 2015
Colbert says Steelers want to re-sign Jason Worilds and that organization feels he had a good season in 2015 and has upside.
— Scott Brown (@ScottBrown_ESPN) February 10, 2015
