The Steelers are looking to sign multiple players from their 2023 draft class to multi-year extensions this offseason. Should they pull it off, it would be the first time they’ve managed to do so in a long time. By my count, the last Steelers draft class that produced multiple multi-year extensions came 15 years ago, a mixed bag.
The Steelers’ 2011 draft class produced, first and foremost, Cam Heyward, who has signed four contract extensions already. But Pittsburgh also signed two others to long-term extensions, albeit with less successful results. They inked T Marcus Gilber to a five-year extension, trading him toward the end of the deal. Less successful was the four-year extension given to CB Cortez Allen, who saw just the first two years of it.
Since then, the Steelers have only signed seven draft picks to multi-year contract extensions, and none from the same class. Though there is a caveat, and it’s an older one. In 2014, they signed Stephon Tuitt to a long-term deal, but that draft class also produced Ryan Shazier, who would have been a Steelers great without suffering a career-ending injury.
The other players in the interim the Steelers signed to multi-year contracts are David DeCastro, T.J. Watt, Chukwuma Okorafor, Diontae Johnson, Alex Highsmith, and Pat Freiermuth. Obviously, some of those deals worked out better than others, particularly the more recent ones—so far.
Not that they haven’t had success drafting. Some Steelers draft picks who signed long-term deals in free agency or after they were traded in that period include Javon Hargrave, Kelvin Beachum, Bud Dupree, Kevin Dotson, and Cameron Sutton. Sutton’s long-term deal with the Lions, though, um…didn’t end well.
With the Steelers’ draft class of 2023, however, they have more players they want to sign to contract extensions than they know what to do with. While first-round pick Broderick Jones is on the shelf due to injury, there are plenty to choose from. The top name is second-round CB Joey Porter Jr., but the list also includes DT Keeanu Benton, TE Darnell Washington, and OLB Nick Herbig.
Herbig is the most interesting name on the list, because he is, effectively, a starter in waiting. And he is waiting behind Watt and Highsmith, two of the evidently rare draft success stories for the Steelers in recent years, as measured by contract extensions signed. Of course, business is business and you can’t keep everybody. But teams like the Steelers, at least purportedly, pride themselves on draft, develop, retain.
They have done plenty of drafting, including 10 picks this year, and there has been some developing, too. The retaining has been and will always be the hardest part. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that the Steelers will lose at least one of these draft picks to a long-term extension by another team in free agency next year. But even inking two of them to long-term deals would mark a significant step forward.
And would be a long time coming.
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