Over the past year and a half, 75 percent of the AFC North committed vast sums of money to their franchise quarterbacks. It began with arguably one of the worst moves in NFL history in the Cleveland Browns trading a king’s ransom for and then giving Deshaun Watson a $230 million, fully guaranteed contract.
This year, the Baltimore Ravens followed up with a five-year, $260 million contract for Lamar Jackson, of which $185,000,000 is guaranteed. Just yesterday, the Cincinnati Bengals committed more than $200 million guaranteed to Joe Burrow on yet another record-breaking deal at $275 million in total. That’s three of the seven largest quarterback contracts in the league concentrated in the AFC North.
You see where this is going. The Pittsburgh Steelers have Kenny Pickett under contract for the next three years on a $14 million rookie contract, plus the fifth-year option. He is earning all of $1,344,450 this season with a $3,197,251 cap hit.
The time is now for the Steelers to take advantage of their window, not just within the division, but within the league. There is never a better time to go all in than on your presumed franchise quarterback’s rookie contract.
Chances are he will be more or less as good as he is going to be later in his career, or at least good enough that it would offset the discrepancy in talent loss that would occur due to an elevated franchise quarterback salary, which now averages comfortably over $50 million per season.
So the ultimate question is this: Can the Steelers be a Super Bowl champion within the next three years? They had better hope so because the odds are it will be their best opportunity. Disregarding Tom Brady, more recent history shows that most teams win their Super Bowl prior to their starter signing a long-term extension.
While Patrick Mahomes just won the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs after signing his big deal, he had already won another on his rookie deal in 2019. Though Nick Foles won, the Philadelphia Eagles’ title came with Carson Wentz on his rookie deal (and Jalen Hurts nearly won last year; so, too, did the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow in 2021).
Russell Wilson for the Seattle Seahawks. Joe Flacco for the Baltimore Ravens. Eli Manning for the New York Giants. Ben Roethlisberger for the Steelers. Yes, the latter two went on to win another Super Bowl after signing extensions, though the quarterback market has also ballooned since then.
To its credit, Pittsburgh does seem to be taking an active and aggressive approach to building the roster around Pickett and trying to ensure that he has enough talent around him to succeed. No amount of preparation is going to guarantee a championship, of course, but the Steelers would be doing themselves and their fans a disservice if they were not to make every effort to acquire that seventh Lombardi before they have to pay up for Pickett. In the meantime, they have the benefit of playing in a division full of teams that have to navigate colossal quarterback contracts—a problem they are very much hoping they will have to contend with three to four years from now.
