The Pittsburgh Steelers surprised a lot of people by declining RB Najee Harris’ fifth-year option on Thursday. Not only are teams increasingly doing so as the option has increased in price, however, it also follows the Steelers’ patterns. Since the advent of the fifth-year option, they have declined (or will decline) six of their 11 available options.
And those options that they have exercised skew heavily toward the early days of the option before the rules changed. Beginning in 2011, the fifth-year option was only guaranteed for injury once exercised until the start of the new league year of the fifth year. Since 2018, however, it’s guaranteed immediately once exercised.
The Steelers have not exercised a single fifth-year option on any player they have drafted since then. That list includes S Terrell Edmunds (2018), ILB Devin Bush (2019), Najee Harris (2021) and QB Kenny Pickett. Pickett’s fifth-year option isn’t due until next year, but they traded him. They had no first-round pick in 2020, trading it in exchange for Minkah Fitzpatrick, a 2018 first-round pick whose option they did exercise.
The last player whose option the Steelers exercised is 2017 OLB T.J. Watt, their last no-brainer home-run first-round hit. Yet they hit on four of their first five first-round picks of the option era, beginning with the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement. That list includes DL Cameron Heyward (2011), G David DeCastro (2012), ILB Ryan Shazier (2014) and OLB Bud Dupree (2015). First-round OLB Jarvis Jones (2013) was once the exception, now the rule. They declined 2016 CB Artie Burns’ fifth-year option as well.
| Player | Year | Optioned |
|---|---|---|
| Cameron Heyward | 2011 | Yes |
| David DeCastro | 2012 | Yes |
| Jarvis Jones | 2013 | No |
| Ryan Shazier | 2014 | Yes |
| Bud Dupree | 2015 | Yes |
| Artie Burns | 2016 | No |
| T.J. Watt | 2017 | Yes |
| Terrell Edmunds | 2018 | No |
| Devin Bush | 2019 | No |
| N/A | 2020 | N/A |
| Najee Harris | 2021 | No |
| Kenny Pickett | 2022 | N/A |
Notably, only Heyward, DeCastro and Watt went on to sign long-term extensions. Shazier is an asterisk in this conversation due to his career-ending injury, as he otherwise might still be starting today. Dupree played out his fifth-year option plus one year under the franchise tag before leaving in free agency.
In other words, the Steelers’ history of adding long-term contributors in the first round is in the doghouse for the past decade. Noting the Shazier exception, they’ve only found one long-term player in the past decade.
Harris could still sign a multi-year contract extension, granted, following the 2024 season. As I noted, teams are increasingly declining players’ option years and signing them to extensions, instead. In many cases, it’s a more attractive alternative than guaranteeing the fifth-year salary in advance.
Hope springs eternal for the Steelers’ most recent first-round selections, a pair of tackles. They traded up to 14 from 17 in 2023 to land Broderick Jones, already a starter. Last week, they selected Troy Fautanu, who could be a Day-One starter himself, or so they hope.
But as this list indicates, not all hopes live up to their possibilities. The Steelers intended every single one of these players to have a long history in the organization, and most of them did not. Never in a million years did they imagine getting just two years out of a “franchise” quarterback.
