Pittsburgh Steelers Exit Meeting: OG James Daniels
Experience: 7 Years (3 with Steelers)
Last year probably didn’t rank among the favorites of Steelers OG James Daniels. Entering the final year of his contract, he told reporters the team didn’t plan to extend him. That likely also implies they were prepared for him to walk in free agency in 2025. To make matters worse, he suffered a major injury a month into the season.
Now Daniels is due to hit free agency in a few weeks, and the Steelers don’t plan to re-sign him. But what will his market look like with teams knowing that he is still rehabbing? He is still young, just 27 years old despite having seven seasons under his belt.
But injuries are always an unwelcome variable, and many teams are less forgiving than the Steelers. The Bears, for example, rescinded a big offer to Larry Ogunjobi a few years ago—and the Steelers signed him instead. Even James Daniels was only a year removed from a major injury when they signed him. You can also look at Ladarius Green and Williams Jackson III as other injured players the Steelers gambled on.
Not every team is the Steelers, though, and that could limit Daniels’ market. While the Steelers may well spend beyond what they would otherwise lose in free agency, that could in theory damage their potential compensatory picks, as well.
The Steelers have seemingly planned to move on from Daniels for a while. After they drafted Mason McCormick in the fourth round last year, they alluded to it. In explaining their reasoning, they noted that Daniels and Nate Herbig were both free agents in 2025. Now McCormick, thanks to Daniels’ injury, is the Steelers’ likely starting right guard moving forward.
Not because he is a better option for the Steelers than James Daniels, but because he is cheaper. The Steelers signed Daniels to an $8.5 million APY deal in 2022, and he should command comfortably more than that, barring the injury. He has played well in Pittsburgh, and the guard market has risen steadily.
As I said, the Steelers aren’t moving on from Daniels because of his play, or his age. At 27 years old, he still has plenty of tread on the tires and is younger than Isaac Seumalo was when they signed him. But the NFL is a business, and Mason McCormick will be a lot cheaper. And they are hoping to have some expensive tackles in the next few years, so a cheaper guard is ideal.
The Pittsburgh Steelers find themselves at home, the inevitable result of another early playoff exit. This is a repeated pattern for the organization, with no clear end in sight. As the Steelers conduct their own exit meetings, we will go down the roster conducting our own. Who should stay, and who should go, and how? Who should expect a bigger role next season, and who might deserve a new contract? We’ll explore those questions and more in these articles, part of an annual series.
