Coming off of a career year in 2022 for the Pittsburgh Steelers, outside linebacker Alex Highsmith is in line for a life-changing contract extension with the historic franchise.
All parties involved, from GM Omar Khan, owner Art Rooney II, and Highsmith himself, have stated that they desire to get a deal done and keep the third-round pick in 2020 out of Charlotte in the Black and Gold for the foreseeable future.
As training camp draws closer and closer — now just 24 days away — a contract extension hasn’t agreed upon yet, which is causing some questions in the media, particularly The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly, who wonders if the lack of a Highsmith extension to this point could become a “distraction” for the Steelers entering training camp.
In a piece Monday morning highlighting the biggest summer concern for all 32 teams across the league, Kaboly wrote for the Steelers section that the Highsmith contract negotiations are becoming slightly concerning.
“Ideally, you would want to head into training camp without any external issues. It should be all about football. But that might not happen for the second consecutive year and third year in a row when it comes to extending a key player before the team’s self-imposed deadline of the start of the season,” Kaboly writes regarding Highsmith’s situation. “Highsmith is coming off a 14 1/2-sack season and is in the final year of his rookie deal. Even though he participated fully in all of spring activities, the last two Steelers who faced significant extensions — T.J. Watt and Diontae Johnson — did a training camp “hold in” before their deal was finished. Highsmith hasn’t given an indication either way what he would do. The Steelers’ front office has given no indication that they don’t want to extend Highsmith but the question that looms is when? Watt waited until right before the season. Johnson was a week into training camp.”
The only real reason that the T.J. Watt and Diontae Johnson contract negotiations even crept close to “distractions” — to use that term extremely loosely. — was because of the constant coverage regarding Watt and Johnson and the “hold in” that they were conducting during training camp. Media members reported every little thing that Watt and Johnson did each day on the field, and even asked a number of teammates daily about their thoughts on Watt and Johnson’s “hold in.”
At one point, it became rather ridiculous overall.
Those “hold in” tactics didn’t affect the players where it mattered most: on the field.
Watt came out and lit the league on fire after signing his record-breaking deal, recording two sacks against the Buffalo Bills on the road in Week 1 of the 2021 season. He then added a sack against the Las Vegas Raiders the following week before injuring his groin. The groin injury had nothing to do with his “hold in.”
Johnson hit the ground running in 2022, recording 21 receptions in the first three weeks of the season, making a monster catch against the Cincinnati Bengals in the Week 1 win in overtime, and then had a huge night on Thursday Night Football against the Cleveland Browns in Week 3.
Now, all eyes turn to Highsmith.
He’s coming off of the 14.5 sack season and went through all the spring drills in Organized Team Activities and minicamp. He’s not worried about the extension and is focused on preparing for the season. Even if he does conduct a “hold in” during training camp, who can blame him? He’s on the cusp of life-changing money and has earned every penny that is coming to him. Why not take it slow in training camp to try and avoid injury before signing a new deal?
The best way to potentially eliminate any sort of perceived “distraction” is for both sides to get a deal done before training camp. That way, the focus from the outside can be on nothing but football, rather than people trying to drum up drama with talk of “hold ins” and “distractions” overall.
