The Pittsburgh Steelers have reportedly agreed to a two-year, $12.5 million contract extension with DeShon Elliott and assuming the early numbers passed along are correct, the veteran safety received a nice pay raise for the 2025 season. In fact, prior to him agreeing to terms on this extension, Elliott had a career cash earning total of $9,818,800. If indeed Elliott will now earn $9.21 million in 2025, as the early reporting suggests he will, he will nearly double his career earnings after this season.
The writing was on the wall that Elliott might ultimately sign an extension this offseason, especially on the heels of the team signing fellow veteran safety Juan Thornhill to a one-year, $3 million contract earlier in the offseason. Elliott extremely outplayed the $3 million he earned in 2024, his first season in Pittsburgh. The Steelers have the available cash to spend this offseason, and it made too much sense to ultimately get Elliott extended past 2025.
While we wait for the exact structure of the amounts related to Elliott’s deal, it’s a wonderful time to look at the possible message that the extension sends to a few other new players currently under contract for 2025 and 2026. New players who fit that criteria include CB Brandin Echols and ILB Malik Harrison, both of whom signed cheap two-year contracts with the Steelers this offseason.
Of Echols and Harrison, the former probably has the best chance at following Elliott’s path a year from now, especially if he can win the starting nickel cornerback job this summer. That won’t be an easy task, however, as Echols will presumably be competing against second-year cornerback Beanie Bishop Jr. for that job.
Merely beating out Bishop this summer for the starting nickel job won’t be enough to put Echols on the path for an extension next summer, however. While Elliott was the odds-on favorite to be the Steelers’ starting strong safety at this same time a year ago, he still had to go out and outperform his 2024 cash total to put himself in a great position to sign a contract extension this summer. He certainly did that, and quite honestly, he was one of the most consistent performers on the Steelers’ 2024 defense.
Echols arrives in Pittsburgh with just 19 total NFL starts. He’s also logged just 1,379 career defensive snaps in his first four NFL seasons on his way to registering 122 total tackles, three tackles for loss, five interceptions, 16 passes defensed and one fumble recovery. In short, his resume is lacking when compared to that of Elliott a year ago. Even so, a career year for Echols in 2025 is at least plausible. He will turn 28 in October, so he should have a few good seasons remaining in him should he outplay his 2025 contract cash total of $3 million.
As for Harrison, who signed a two-year, $10 million contract with the Steelers this offseason, his path to possibly duplicating what Elliott has now accomplished seems a bit tougher, especially when it comes to his position group. Harrison’s path to extensive playing time in 2025 is a particularly challenging one with the Steelers’ inside linebacker room currently including Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson, and Cole Holcomb. It might take a few injuries for Harrison to see extensive playing time on defense in 2025. Even so, his situation will be worth monitoring when the 2025 regular season finally gets underway.
Beyond Echols and Harrison, the recent Elliott extension should be viewed as a nice carrot dangle for backup tackle Calvin Anderson as well. Anderson, who originally signed a one-year contract with the Steelers last September, re-signed with the Steelers this offseason. That new two-year deal that Anderson signed totaled $4 million and now puts him in position to be the primary backup tackle this summer after playing just 11 offensive snaps in 2024.
Obviously, Anderson is not a lock to make the 53-man roster this summer. If, however, he does wind up as the primary backup to starters Broderick Jones and Troy Fautanu, he would be just one injury away from potentially seeing an extensive amount of playing time in 2025. Should he somehow fall up and thus into such a situation, a great showing over the course of numerous games in 2025 could put him into consideration for a contract extension a year from now. While it might be considered a huge stretch to suggest such a thing right now, it is at least plausible at this point of this offseason.
In closing, Echols really seems to be the one player currently under contract for the next two seasons who could potentially parlay a nice 2025 season into a more lucrative contract extension a year from now. Much like Elliott, however, it should be a very black or white decision when it comes to his play in 2025. Either he’ll stick out positively in 2025 in the same manner and degree that Elliott did in 2024, or he won’t. It’s that simple.
At the very least, the Elliott extension sends a clear message to several other players currently under contract on lower-value deals. That message is: outplay your current value this season and you might just be rewarded handsomely next offseason, the same way that Elliott just was.
