For the third straight summer a key member of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ defense is staring down a potentially lucrative contract extension with the franchise.
After watching T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick get locked up long-term in recent years, it’s now outside linebacker Alex Highsmith’s turn, ensuring another homegrown player who continues to come into his own on the field is part of the Steelers’ future defensively.
Just don’t expect the contract extension that Highsmith eventually signs with the Steelers to be a huge one, at least according to ESPN’s Brooke Pryor.
In a piece for ESPN.com Thursday morning taking a look at the potential contract extensions for 19 players across the NFL this summer, Pryor highlighted Highsmith as the player for the Steelers. She wrote that while she believes an extension could get done sooner rather than later between Highsmith and the franchise, it “doesn’t seem likely” that it will be a huge contract extension like the ones Watt, Fitzpatrick and even wide receiver Diontae Johnson got last summer.
“With megadeals negotiated in the past two offseasons for T.J. Watt and Minkah Fitzpatrick, the Steelers’ extension to-do list is a little less daunting this summer. The team has engaged with Highsmith’s representation, but Highsmith has been coy on the exact progress between the two sides. A year ago, the Steelers inked Fitzpatrick to his four-year, $73.6 million deal just after mandatory minicamp, a departure from their usual pattern of completing contracts up against their self-imposed Week 1 deadline. With general manager Omar Khan again in charge of negotiations as a second-year general manager, Highsmith could also see a deal sooner rather than later,” Pryor writes for ESPN.com regarding Highsmith’s contract extension negotiations. “Highsmith displayed his value in 2022 with a career-best 14.5 sacks, and the Steelers are optimistic about reviving a solid three-man outside linebacker rotation with the addition of Markus Golden. Still, Pittsburgh doesn’t seem likely to shell out a huge contract for Highsmith. A four-year deal in the neighborhood of $14 million per year would give him the fourth-largest cap hit on this year’s Steelers roster.”
The Steelers already have the highest-paid defense in football thanks to the extensions signed in recent years by Watt, Fitzpatrick and captain Cameron Heyward, not to mention the lucrative three-year deal that defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi signed in free agency this offseason with the Steelers.
Chances are, they were never going to break the bank for Highsmith, so Pryor’s stance of him not getting a huge contract extension really isn’t all that bold. That said, Highsmith is likely going to get somewhere between $14-$16 million per year in an extension with Steelers, whether that’s a two-year, three-year, or four-year extension this summer.
Steelers Depot’s Dave Bryan put together an early projection on a Highsmith contract extension back in early April and had Highsmith slotted for a two-year extension between $15 and $17.25 million from the Steelers, which would make him the 13th highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL, according to Over the Cap.
That two-year extension would keep him under contract through the 2025 season and in turn would allow him one more potential bite of the proverbial apple ahead of his 30th birthday as a free agent.
As part of Bryan’s contract projection for Highsmith on a two-year extension, he has Highsmith receiving a signing bonus of $15 million and a new 2023 base salary of $1.25 million, with that also being fully guaranteed. The cash take for Highsmith in 2023, according to his projection, would be $16.25 million, the only fully guaranteed money of the deal.
Such a first-year layout in Bryan’s projected deal for Highsmith would produce a new 2023 salary cap charge of $6,458,073. Highsmith is already scheduled to have a 2023 salary cap charge of $2,951,073, so that would call for an increase of $3.507 million, which shouldn’t be hard for the Steelers to handle.
Pryor’s projection of a four-year extension at $14 million per year is a shot in the dark. Having him down as the fourth-largest cap hit on this year’s Steelers roster with an extension like that is, in a word, wrong.
Highsmith’s 2023 cap charge on even a two-year extension at just over $15 million new money average would be roughly $6.5 million, eighth-highest on the team for 2023. If she is talking three-year extension at $14 million new money average, Highsmith’s 2023 cap charge would be even lower than $6.5 million in 2023.
In her projection, Pryor is using the $14 million new money average as if it is the cap charge, whereas she should just be using the new money average. That would rank fifth on the team for 2023, behind the likes of Watt, Fitzpatrick, Johnson and Heyward. Additionally, a $14 million new money average on an extension for Highsmith would slot him in as the 16th highest-paid edge rusher in football, lower than Bryan’s contract projection.
At this point with Highsmith and an extension with the Steelers, it’s more about “when” than “if” it happens. Chances are great than when a deal gets done, it will be much, much closer to Bryan’s projection than the one Pryor threw out there. It won’t break the bank, either.
