The next contract of Ben could be very tough

[polamalubeast]

Very good chance that Wilson and Luck have a contract of 25 million per year in this offseason

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/10/seattle-seahawks-russell-wilson-highest-paid-quarterback

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/18/report-colts-planning-big-money-deal-for-luck/

[zulater]

They should have got this done last year. Ben wanted it done.His agent wanted it done. But the Steelers made an executive decision to put this on the back burner, and now it's coming back to burn them.

[TMC]

The Steelers simply need to make extending Ben a priority, and they can do that right now. He could easily be extended before any other move is made.

[Psycho Ward 86]

Very good chance that Wilson and Luck have a contract of 25 million per year in this offseason

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/01/10/seattle-seahawks-russell-wilson-highest-paid-quarterback

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/18/report-colts-planning-big-money-deal-for-luck/

fml...

[Mojouw]

Both of these reports fail to mention the critical part - the guaranteed cash. For instance, Flacco's contract was reported as $120 million, but only about $50 some million of that was guaranteed. The rest is funny money. Looking at this chart, the $$ is structured so that dead money does not exceed cap charge -- meaning the Ravens can cut Flacco basically whenever they damn well please (http://overthecap.com/player/joe-flacco/1383/).

Same thing with Aaron Rodgers (http://overthecap.com/player/aaron-rodgers/1085).

Basically, front load the contract with cash and "pay" for the first 2-3 years and then the rest is structured so that the Steelers can cut Ben when/if production dips.

[zulater]

The Steelers simply need to make extending Ben a priority, and they can do that right now. He could easily be extended before any other move is made.


They didn't do this last offseason because they needed the cap space to sign Cam Thomas and Mike Mitchell. :doh:

:wink02:

[fansince'76]

Both of these reports fail to mention the critical part - the guaranteed cash.

I dismissed the one by Ian "Make-up-a-report" out of hand anyway. The other critical part that hasn't been mentioned is that Ben is almost a decade older than Wilson and Luck and already got his giant second contract years ago. If he's serious about wanting to win more SBs, he'll leave a little bit on the table to help the team fix the defense and keep players like Le'Veon Bell around once their rookie deals are up.

[Mojouw]

They didn't do this last offseason because they needed the cap space to sign Cam Thomas and Mike Mitchell. :doh:

:wink02:

Also delaying the deal a year allowed a ton of the Steelers books to clear up. If Taylor and Troy P retire, Cam gets cut, Moore gets canned and they extend Ben, Heyward, and Beachum; I think the Steelers can get into the neighborhood of $15 million+ of cap space.

Not bad for a team that was supposed to be terminally in the red as little as 12 months ago. I mean they could be Dallas or the Saints. Those are two teams whose balance sheet is not going to look good for a LONG time.

[steelreserve]

They didn't redo the contract last year because the restructures would have made it virtually impossible. I remember reading something about how a new contract would've accelerated all of the prorated bonus money from the old contract (which, after all the restructures, was a shitload) into last year along with the new contract ... so not only would we have broken our cap in 2014, if we paid him anywhere near market value we would've also had the pleasure of a backloaded contract with cap hits approaching $30M after the first couple years. It would've been a losing deal no matter what we did. We didn't just postpone it because we were stupid. Now, whether we were smart for getting ourselves into that restructure-hell situation in the first place may be another matter, but not the point I'm trying to argue ...

Also, I don't see us paying $25 million because Luck's or Wilson's agent are throwing around those numbers. Wilson will never get that much, or if he does, half of it will be a mirage, because they are not going to be able to afford that. Luck maybe, but if so it will be the deal that everyone looks at and says "Wow, they actually spent way too much money this time and it's going to hurt the team, this is getting way out of hand and they really need to draw the line somewhere." Kind of like when the Raiders paid Nnamdi Asomugha $15M a year, and $15M suddenly DIDN'T become the new standard for top-tier cornerbacks.

In any case, just because someone else hands out a record-breaking contract does not mean you are obligated to trump them with an even bigger deal. Just a fair market offer that everyone is happy with. I still see this landing right at $20M on the nose, maybe a couple years of it at $18M if we're fortunate.