Thanks to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ decision not to pick up Najee Harris’ fifth-year option, they have four draft picks from the class of 2021 due to reach unrestricted free agency in March, but arguably the most prominent is second-round TE Pat Freiermuth. Though coming off a down year, he has been identified as the Steelers’ most likely extension candidate this summer.
Determining his value is something of a tricky matter, however. As always, you pay a player based on what you expect him to do in the future. But that’s harder to predict for Freiermuth given the limitations within which he’s worked. Add on top of that injuries and a change at quarterback and you have a lot of unknowns at play.
While Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette favors extending Freiermuth, he believes there’s a limit to what you can offer. He has not put up anywhere near elite numbers for the position and calling his blocking mediocre is often charitable.
“With a good QB I think you’ll see Freiermuth become a better weapon for this offense”, Fittipaldo said in his most recent chat. “However, I wouldn’t overpay for him. I think if they can get him for somewhere in the 12-13 million a year range they should do it. That’s the going rate for TEs of his caliber”.
That caliber of tight end right now consists of Dalton Schultz, Cole Kmet, David Njoku, and Evan Engram. The latter two are on the higher side, though, pushing toward Mark Andrews and Dallas Goedert territory. Four tight ends earn $15 million per year or more, topped by Travis Kelce after his newest extension. Darren Waller, T.J. Hockenson, and George Kittle also make up that top-pay tier.
As a rookie in 2021, Pat Freiermuth caught 60 passes for 497 yards and seven touchdowns. He showed much better efficiency the following year with 732 yards on 63 catches, but just two scores. Limited to 12 games in 2023, he caught 32 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns.
Freiermuth often seemed outside of the game plan, however. Just a week before he caught nine passes for 120 yards, for example, he only saw one target, a seven-yard reception. Indeed, he only recorded 40-plus receiving yards in three games in 2023 while totaling under 20 seven times.
As far as his blocking goes, Freiermuth remains inconsistent at best. The entire offense made strides as a collective in the blocking department late last season. I don’t suspect that he will pick up where he left off, however. He may even lose blocking snaps to MyCole Pruitt.
With 155 catches for 1,537 yards and 11 touchdowns in 44 games, what is Pat Freiermuth worth? Should the Steelers extend him on a deal worth $13 million per season? Well, they have to decide that based on what they believe he can do under Arthur Smith. And what kind of relationship he may have with QB Russell Wilson, perhaps Justin Fields as well. Based on his body of work up to this point, it feels pricy to me, but the market only knows one direction, which is up.
