Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has a shot at earning some extra money in 2019 if he manages to accomplish some pretty lofty tasks this upcoming season.
In a Tuesday post on CBS Sports about Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his possible forthcoming contract extension, former NFL agent Joel Corry briefly touched on the salary escalators that are included in the last contract extension that Roethlisberger signed in 2015.
Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has a salary escalator in his contract that attempts to help him keep pace with changing market conditions. His 2018 and 2019 third-day-of-the-league-year roster bonuses increase by a maximum of $3 million and $6 million based on his regular-season MVPs, Super Bowl MVPs and Pittsburgh’s Super Bowl wins in the previous years of his contract. Roethlisberger has yet to earn any of the salary escalators because of the extremely high performance thresholds. Even if Roethlisberger had, the escalator wouldn’t have been sufficient because of the way quarterback salaries have grown since he signed his four-year extension in 2015.
As Corry points out in his post, Roethlisberger has failed to trigger any of his escalators since he signed that contract extension. Because of that, reached out to Corry for clarification on what’s left for Roethlisberger to earn escalator-wise and he informed me that the Steelers quarterback can max out at an extra $2.5 million for 2019 based on what happens during the 2018 season.
Even if Roethlisberger fails to max out in 2018, which we all hope isn’t ultimately the case, the Steelers quarterback will still be in line to receive another $5 million roster bonus in March of 2019, just as he did this past March. Additionally, Roethlisberger is currently scheduled to earn a base salary of $12 million in 2019, which is currently set to be the final year of his contract.
By this same time next year, there’s a chance that Roethlisberger will have already signed yet another contract extension. If, however, a year from now that hasn’t happened, he’ll be in line to receive the franchise tag from the Steelers ahead of the 2020 new league year.
