With Joe Haden‘s new deal in the books, the next man up would appear to be defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. However, a deal appears unlikely to come together before the start of the season and Hargrave is prepared to play out the final year of his contract before reaching free agency, Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com tweets.
This jibes with what we heard back in August – the Steelers are short on cap room and aren’t ready to meet the asking price of Hargraves, who is deployed largely a run-stuffer. Like most interior lineman specializing in stopping the ground game, he’s not quite a full-time player, though he has also been effective against the pass, as demonstrated by his 6.5 sacks last year.
It’s not hard to imagine the 26-year-old cashing in next March, just after his 27th birthday. If he sees more snaps this year and frustrated opposing quarterbacks even more, he could easily price himself out of Pittsburgh.
You can’t sign everyone. Ju Ju, Conner and Watt are due soon.
Teams can always find a way to manipulate the soft cap to get their key players locked in. This is why all the hysteria in Dallas over Elliot, Prescott and Cooper is absurd. All 3 will get re-signed. The Steelers could certainly have kept Bell and Brown if personalities hadn’t became an issue.
We do have 21mil+ coming off the books to pay some people next year.
your window has slammed shut.whos gonna get you there? juju? not ‘big” Ben? nah you’ll be the Miami dolphins before long