Pittsburgh Steelers DT Cameron Heyward and K Chris Boswell are both in the news on Thursday as both are reportedly wanting their contracts addressed before the start of the 2025 regular season. If that news for both players comes as a surprise, it really shouldn’t. On top of it all, allow me to explain why both have great cases to be made and how the Steelers can easily fix those situations with the two players in the next four weeks.
Let me start first with Boswell and his contract situation. I’m not going to go deep into his offseason contract wants because I already did that way back in April. In short, Boswell, who is currently scheduled to earn just $3.12 million in 2025, is criminally underpaid going into the 2025 season. While he does have two years left on his current contract, the Steelers can easily make him happy by moving forward most of his 2026 base salary that he’s scheduled to earn into 2025 in addition to a little bit more new cash on top of that.
Making Boswell the highest-paid cash-earning kicker in the NFL for the 2025 season won’t be hard to do, and the Steelers should make that happen prior to Week 1 getting underway. Boswell’s 2025 cap charge would likely increase slightly by giving him more cash in 2025, but that rise would not be significant just the same.
Boswell is arguably the NFL’s best kicker right now and thus he deserves to have a 2025 cash total that reflects that.
As for Heyward’s situation, it seems as though fans of the Steelers and members of the media are struggling a lot with the news related to him wanting something done with his current contract. That should be the case, however, and especially with there being a lot of misinformation circulating about him concerning the contract extension that he signed just last September.
For starters, let me remind everyone that while Heyward did sign a two-year contract extension just prior to the start of the 2024 regular season, that deal was just a glorified restructuring overall. What does that mean? Well, Heyward entered the 2024 offseason scheduled to earn $16 million for the season. All the Steelers did was to take a chunk ($14.7 million) of the $16 million base salary that Heyward as already scheduled to earn in 2024 and they turned it into a signing bonus. They added two more years to his contract as part of that glorified contract restructuring. Those two additional years (2025 & 2026) included non-guaranteed base salaries of $1.3 million and March roster bonuses in 2025 and 2026 of $13.45 million and $12.95 million, respectively. Both of those roster bonuses weren’t fully guaranteed, either.
But Heyward did get a new deal, or at least an extension, right? Yes, in theory, he did, but Heyward did not pocket any additional cash in 2024 above and beyond the $16 million that he was already scheduled to earn prior to the extension getting completed. The only gain Heyward made last September is that all of the $16 million that he was scheduled to earn went from unguaranteed to fully guaranteed.
Before we move on, you had better re-read the last two paragraphs and make sure you have both fully digested.
So, here we are now in 2025, and on the heels of Heyward having a fantastic 2024 season and him not getting any new cash last year to boot. He is now scheduled to earn just $14.75 million in cash for the 2025 season. $1.3 million of that is base salary, and the other $13.45 million he earned back in March, with him still on the roster then. That means that Heyward is set to earn just $30.75 million in total for 2024 and 2025. That’s him being obscenely underpaid, and if any of you can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you.
What should Heyward’s target be when it comes to his 2025 cash earnings? Well, Indianapolis Colts DT DeForest Buckner is scheduled to earn $23 million in 2025 cash. That should be Heyward’s target number for his cash total this season, if we are honest and fair. On the low side, Heyward should be looking to top the 2025 cash total of Seattle Seahawks DT Leonard Williams, which is $20.85 million. Remember, Heyward is scheduled to earn just $14.75 million in 2025 cash right now.
As previously mentioned, Heyward is due to get a 2026 March roster bonus of $12.95 million as things stand right now. That’s not fully guaranteed, however. If the Steelers were to pay him half of that 2026 roster bonus this summer as a signing bonus, his 2025 cash total would jump up to $21.225 million, which would be more than Williams and a little less than Buckner. That’s a nice fit for Heyward, in my opinion.
If Heyward were to be given half of his 2026 roster bonus this offseason as a signing bonus, his 2025 salary cap charge would only increase by $3.2375 million. The Steelers could easily absorb that increase in addition to throwing the extra $6.475 million in cash his way for the 2025 season.
If Heyward is unable to secure more additional cash from the Steelers for the 2025 season, at the very least, he should demand that the team fully guarantees his 2026 March roster bonus before the start of the 2025 regular season.
How and when might all of these situations with Boswell and Heyward ultimately play out? First, after training camp and the preseason end is perfect when it comes to the timing for both. After all, the Steelers should wait to make sure both players make it to Week 1 fully healthy before making any contract adjustments. As for the how, I passionately believe both will wind up getting cash raises for the 2025 season when the smoke finally clears and probably remarkably similar to the ways I laid out in this post.
As for what might ultimately happen with Boswell and Heyward for the 2026 season, that’s a worry for another day, and it obviously depends mainly on how both perform in 2025. Could both be looking for additional 2026 money a year from now? Sure, that’s possible, but that is a bridge too far to worry about crossing right now.
In the meantime, don’t worry about Heyward and Boswell. Both will be in uniform and ready to go by the start of the 2025 regular season, and both will probably have a little more cash in their pockets as well.
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