Will the Pittsburgh Steelers get cornerback Joe Haden signed to a contract extension in the next 19 days? It’s hard to know for sure with two weeks remaining in the 2019 NFL preseason but one national media reporter seems to think Haden and the Steelers will indeed get an extension hammered out before the start of the 2019 regular season.
In a Tuesday interview on 93.7 The Fan, Aditi Kinkhabwala of the NFL Network said she believes that the Steelers will ultimately get Haden signed to a contract extension prior to the start of the regular season.
“I think a deal will get done,” Kinkhabwala said. “I think Joe is very happy. Joe is building a house in Pittsburgh. He has two kids. He likes being here and he likes playing on this team. He likes his teammates and I don’t think Joe is sitting waiting for the highest bidder.” She later added, “I don’t think he’s going to sit here and hold up a deal if he doesn’t get every last penny. You know, a little bit different than some of the other people that have been negotiating with the Steelers recently.”
Evidently Kinkhabwala saying that Haden is currently building a new house in Pittsburgh is new news and if indeed true, maybe he is doing so because he knows he’s about to sign a lucrative contract extension. That’s just mere speculation on my part, however.
Throughout the offseason, Haden has been considered one of the few likeliest candidates to sign a contract extension with the Steelers prior to the start of the 2019 regular season. Maybe such a contract extension would have already been consummated by now had Haden not suffered an ankle or foot injury during a training camp practice just prior to the team’s first preseason game.
In a recent online chat with readers, Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicated that the Steelers are still working on getting Haden signed, but that that process “has been delayed for various reasons out of their control.” One can only speculate that the Steelers were waiting to make sure that Haden’s recent injury wasn’t serious in nature before moving forward with a contract extension with him. As best as everybody seems to know, Haden should be ready to play in the Steelers regular season opener against the New England Patriots two weeks from this coming Sunday.
Throughout this year’s training camp, Haden was asked a few times to discuss his contract extension talks with the Steelers and he would only say that he is optimistic that a deal would eventually get done. Assuming one does get done in the next 19 days, odds are probably good that the extension would be for at least two years past this year and that Haden will come away from it with new money average of somewhere around $11-12 million per year.
Haden is currently scheduled to earn a base salary in 2019 of $10 million as part of the three-year, $27 million contract he signed with the Steelers just prior to the start of the 2017 regular season.
