The Steelers are now in their offseason after failing to reach the playoffs in 2022, coming up just a game short of sneaking in as the seventh seed. They needed help in week 18 and only got some of it, so instead they sat home and watched the playoffs with the rest of us.
On tap is figuring out how to be on the field in January and February instead of being a spectator. They started out 2-6, digging a hole that proved too deep to dig out of even if they managed to go 7-2 in the second half of the year.
Starting from the end of the regular season and leading all the way up to the beginning of the 2023 season, there are plenty of questions that need answered, starting with who will be the offensive coordinator. Which free agents will be kept? Who might be let go due to their salary? How might they tackle free agency with this new front office? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout this offseason, as we have for many years.
Question: Will Alex Highsmith play his entire NFL career in Pittsburgh?
A deal is never done before it’s signed, sealed, and delivered. Many fully expect the Steelers to wrap up a contract extension with fourth-year veteran outside linebacker Alex Highsmith at some point over the next two months, and I do have a good feeling that is going to happen.
But what then? First of all, how long will that contract extension be? Three years? Four years? Let’s say that it’s a four-year extension, which puts him under contract through his age-30 season (he turns 26 in August). What comes after that?
He would be hitting the open market, potentially, as a 30-year-old as of March 2028. We don’t know how his career is going to play out from this point on until the end of whatever his next deal happens to be, but even if he plays very well or otherwise, not all roads will lead back to Pittsburgh.
The Steelers do a better job than most teams of keeping their players in-house, but it’s harder to do when you’re paying multiple players at the same position, and it’s hard to envision a Steelers team in the near future without T.J. Watt.
Then again, of course, you never know how things will play out. Watt will turn 29 in October, so at the end of the theoretical contract extension discussed above for Highsmith, the former Defensive Player of the Year will already be through his age-33 season. And he wouldn’t even be under contract by that point barring another extension.
Could Highsmith’s extension in 2023 take him through the end, or near to the end, of Watt’s playing career, with a follow-up extension placing him as the team’s number one pass rusher? Will Watt be playing at too high a level to pass that torch, leaving Highsmith to find a better opportunity on the open market?
This is all (potentially) somewhat far off in the future, but it’s always a subject of discussion when it comes to high-quality homegrown Steelers talent. They like to keep as many of them as they can, but sometimes things don’t work out. And it might not for Highsmith, if not now, then in the future. We don’t know if he’ll play every snap of his career in the black and gold. We can’t even say that for sure about Cameron Heyward, even though it’s extremely likely.
