As the first official evening of the 2015 NFL new league year starts to come to close, it appears as though Pittsburgh Steelers free agent linebacker Jason Worilds is having problems finding a team interested in his services.
At the time of this post, there have been no reports indicating that Worilds has as much as a visit scheduled with a team.
In somewhat related news, other unsigned free agent edge rushers are getting some attention. According to several media reports, Washington Redskins free agent linebacker Brian Orakpo has visits scheduled with the Tennessee Titans and Arizona Cardinals. Titans free agent linebacker Derrick Morgan has visits scheduled with the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while Cleveland Browns defensive end/outside linebacker Jabaal Sheard is reportedly visiting with the New England Patriots Tuesday night.
If that’s not enough, outside linebacker Brooks Reed, formerly of the Houston Texans, signed a five-year, $22 million contract with the Falcons on Tuesday.
Now that edge rushers Pernell McPhee, Jerry Hughes and Brandon Graham have also already agreed to new deals, you can clearly see that Worilds really appears to have been left out in the cold. And in fact, you would have to think that the Steelers now have a good chance of re-signing him.
Earlier on Tuesday, it was reported that the New York Giants think that Worilds is asking for too much money. Maybe they’ll still be interested in signing him if his asking price comes down.
At this point you really have to think that Worilds might have to accept a contract that averages $6 million a season or less. On top of that, one would think that $10 million guaranteed on a four-year deal might be the max.
If Worilds was to indeed get $24 million over four years with $10 million guaranteed, his 2015 cap charge would be $4 million if given an $8 million signing bonus and a $2 million first-year base salary. The Steelers might have to clear a little more salary cap space to accommodate such a deal, but it is certainly doable.
Re-signing Worilds would at least buy the Steelers a little bit of time to groom a future starter. They already have Arthur Moats back under contract as of Monday and Jarvis Jones is slated to be the starter on the right side in 2015.
We will watch what happens with Worilds over the course of the next several hours, but every hour that he remains unsigned makes it more likely that he will ultimately re-sign with the Steelers. We shall see if the Titans or the Cardinals have anything to say about that, because at this point, they would be the two teams that best fit Worilds and his lowering market price
