Steelers Now
On the heels of Nick Herbig receiving a four-year, $100 million deal, NFL insider Albert Breer thinks Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Alex Highsmith has a strong argument for a new contract.
“Does it mean he’s back at the table looking for a correction to his deal?” Breer asked Wednesday on Sports Illustrated’s YouTube Channel. “His deal is at about $17 million per [year].
Under his new deal, Herbig will make $25 million per year. Significantly more than Highsmith’s $17 million yearly average. Highsmith has two years left on his deal.
“He can very easily make the argument here, ‘I need to be paid more, as a starting player than Nick Herbig, who is being played as a guy who is a rotational guy …’ Certainly, I think the Herbig contract will have some sort of effect on how Alex Highsmith approaches things from a business perspective.”
Highsmith was not at the team’s minicamp practice on Wednesday due to an illness, according to team spokesman Burt Lauten.
Lauten noted that Highsmith will continue to be at the practice facility as he has been all offseason.
Alan Saunders of Steelers Now reports that Highsmith did report to the Steelers facility this morning before being excused.
With Herbig receiving the massive new deal the day prior, eyebrows were raised when Highsmith was absent from the team’s minicamp practice on Wednesday. It appears it had nothing to do with Herbig’s new deal, however.
“I think the most important thing is, when you look at the business side of this, you pay players that obviously you feel deserve it,” McCarthy said Wednesday at the second mandatory minicamp practice. “So, you can never have enough good football players, especially at the outside linebacker or the linebacker position. They’re all playmakers.
“So I am thrilled to death that we have them all.”
McCarthy believes he has one of the best edge rusher trios in the NFL.
“It’s a premier position in the National Football League, and we feel we have one of the premier groups,” McCarthy said.
“You gotta find ways to play everybody. This is not an 11-man operation.”
Highsmith is entering his seventh season with the Steelers. He’s racked up 45 sacks and forced 10 fumbles since being drafted in the third round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Insider Believes Alex Highsmith Has Bone to Pick with Steelers: ‘I Need to Be Paid More’
