The Pittsburgh Steelers weren’t able to retain QB Justin Fields in free agency this year as the former first-round draft pick of the Chicago Bears agreed to a two-year contract with the New York Jets on Monday. With Fields now poised to sign his new deal, details related to the two-year, $40 million contract have surfaced.
According to Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, Fields’ contract is a quite simple one. For starters, it includes a 2025 base salary of $5 million, which is fully guaranteed. Fields’ 2026 base salary is listed at $20 million with $10 million also fully guaranteed. Fields will also receive a $15 million signing bonus.
A screenshot of his tweet because Twitter’s Monday outage is creating problems embedding them directly.
Pelissero also reports that the Jets are including four voidable years in Fields’ contract. If indeed that’s the case, Fields’ 2025 salary cap charge will be all of $8 million. His 2026 salary cap charge is set to be $23 million. In 2027, Fields will have a dead money cap charge of $9 million after his contract voids.
All told, Fields is getting $30 million fully guaranteed with $20 million of that coming in 2025. While the Steelers probably could have given Fields the same total value as the Jets deal, they probably balked at fully guaranteeing any of the second-year money. Additionally, the Steelers are not fans of using voidable years in contracts. That really wouldn’t have been a huge sticking point this year, however, because the Steelers are flush with cap space.
All told, the Steelers obviously didn’t like Fields at an APY of $20 million and especially with $30 million of the $40 million total being fully guaranteed. The Jets could part ways with Fields after the 2025 season but doing so would mean paying the quarterback $30 million for just one season.
