Mike Florio Accuses Steelers Of ‘Squeezing’ Villanueva Over Contract

[polamalubeast]

871690864388489217

[ALLD]

He can walk if he wants. Most teams are looking to upgrade that key position.

[Shoes]

PFT traffic must be down

[steelreserve]

We have the option to keep his rights for roughly 3 years, $16 million total through ERFA, RFA and franchise tag. None of it guaranteed more than year to year, and most of it not available at all unless he plays well enough to merit the franchise tag, which - despite prevailing opinions around here that it's a forgone conclusion - is not very easy to do. That's just reality: He's in a shitty contract situation.

Is he with more to us than that? Yes, but that's irrelevant. The team holds ALL leverage. Any negotiation not run by a total shithead would start out at that point: "3 years and $16 million, now convince me why it should be higher."

Ultimately I do think they'll settle on something a bit more; I've said something like 5 years, $35 million with a substantial guarantee is likely. But all of this talk of a $60M blockbuster deal that pays him like one of the top 5 LTs in the game right out of the gate, that's just pie-in-the-sky bullshit. It's just not the situation, and he knows it, the team knows it, and his agent knows it. Plenty of opportunity to get something done that pays him fairly, but it is NOT going to be $XX,XXX,XXX per year. Sorry, it just isn't. Maybe if they put a couple years of non-guaranteed $16M funny money at the end if it makes his agent feel better, but the odds of him ever seeing that would be less than none.

[polamalubeast]

For the franchise TAG in 2019, if it would be up to me, I would give the franchise TAG to Martavis if he is great in the next 2 years as I think he can be(and if he is clean of course).

I expect that Shazier signs a long term contract next year, so no franchise TAG for him.

- - - Updated - - -


PFT traffic must be down


The more it goes, the more it becomes ridiculous that the drama that this site creates with the steelers!

Especially when this is the contract situations of Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and now Le'Veon Bell.

Yesterday, this idiot asked a question if the steelers could remove the franchise TAG to Bell ..... It's stupid!

[st33lersguy]

As soon as I read Mike Floria, I knew it would be ridiculous

[AtlantaDan]

Since Florio does not have the numbers that are being discussed hard to know what "being squeezed" actually means - as posted above Villanueva is not close to free agency eligibility and the only Steelers position that traditionally gets an extension with more than one year left on the contract is QB - if the Steelers do a deal now there is a discount from market value for LT contracts (which FWIW are no longer that much larger than RT contracts) that will be involved