The longer the Cowboys wait to finalize his contract, the more expensive it will be. Especially if owner/G.M. Jerry Jones continues to drag his feet while other pass rushers get paid.
It’s a factor for the Bengals and Steelers, too. With both Trey Hendrickson and T.J. Watt also trying to get new contracts, each deal becomes a factor in the remaining ones.
We’ve already seen it happen this year. If Parsons, Watt, and/or Hendrickson had been paid last year, it would have been cheaper since it would have happened before players like Maxx Crosby and Myles Garrett pushed the market higher and higher.
Parsons and Watt are the most important. Both are surely trying to surpass Garrett’s $40 million per year in new-money average. If one does, the other will then have a new target.
Even though Hendrickson isn’t angling to be the highest paid at the position, the higher the top of the market, the easier it is for him to argue for whatever it is that he’s trying to get at some point beneath No. 1.
For the teams, there’s no reason to wait. They should be rushing to get the deals done, because the price definitely will go up and more deals get done.
For the players, there’s value in doing something the teams technically aren’t permitted to do — collude.
Last year, the agents at Athletes First played the Dolphins and Packers against each other, as they secured maximum compensation for quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Jordan Love. This year, there’s an opportunity (and a challenge) for agents to work across the ultra-competitive lines that separate the various firms and craft a plan for getting the best deal for both players.
Beyond the natural rivalries between the agencies that handle Parsons and Watt (Athletes First and CAA, respectively), the players are in competition, too. Both Parsons and Watt have a case to be made to be the highest-paid non-quarterback.
Frankly, at this point it makes sense for Parsons and Watt to wait. Which makes it even more urgent for the teams to get the deals done. It’s safe to say the franchise that goes first will end up paying less than it would have paid, if it had gone second.
Through it all, the players will have to decide whether to hold out, or to hold in, until they get their new deals.
Our guess is that, in the end, Parsons and Watt will get signed. With Hendrickson, who knows? The Bengals don’t seem to care if he holds out. Which puts him in position to potentially be this year’s Haason Reddick, if he doesn’t eventually take their best offer.
Steelers running back Jaylen Warren needs to be ready for a lot of carries this season.
Last year’s leading rusher, Najee Harris, left in free agency. Warren was the Steelers’ No. 2 back in 2024, with 120 carries for 511 yards and one touchdown, and this year Pittsburgh plans to let him carry the load. When asked if Warren can handle more touches, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin answered, “Certainly.”
Warren said his whole offseason has been about getting ready for a big workload.
“I approached this offseason differently,” Warren said, via Steelers.com. “I did a lot more things for longevity wise, instead of my old-school training like just getting the cleats on and running 30 hills. I had to adapt. This game is about longevity. And like they say, the best ability is availability.”
Last season, the Steelers ran the ball 533 times in 17 games, and Harris had 263 of them, or just under half. Quarterbacks Justin Fields and Russell Wilson combined for 105, and they’ve been replaced by Aaron Rodgers, who doesn’t run as often. Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith said when you lose half your carries, a running back needs to step up.
“Generally you’ve got 500-plus carries in a regular season,” Smith said. “You’re talking about 1,100 snaps. You would like to be on the plus side of 500. That means you’re in more four-minute. Let’s leave it at 500 carries to divvy up. That’s kind of where you’re at. Then obviously losing Naj, Naj for four years here, he was very durable, and that’s a lot of missing carries.”
Warren said he has “no doubt” that he can pick up the slack.
This year, Aaron Rodgers will become the latest successor to Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh. And Roethlisberger believes it will be a one-year arrangement.
“I don’t think he’s got much more after this year,” Roethlisberger said on his Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger podcast, via Andrew Vasquez of USA Today. “I think this might be it for him — personally. I have no reason — you could ask, ‘Well, how do you know?’ I don’t know. I’m just guessing in terms of you coming off an Achilles [tear]. Coming off my elbow [injury], my first year back I felt like I was 100. I wasn’t even — you don’t realize you’re not 100 until the next year when you are 100.”
Rodgers started all 17 games in 2024, a year after suffering a torn Achilles tendon on the fourth play of the first game of the season.
“He’s going to feel better, but it doesn’t mean that he’s going to have two or three years left,” Roethlisberger said. “I think this might be his last go.”
Roethlisberger is hardly going out on a limb. Not many quarterbacks have played deep into their 40s. Rodgers turns 42 in December. (Roethlisberger retired at 39.)
While he hasn’t said it, Rodgers’s main objective seems to be authoring a final chapter that has a better ending than his two-year detour to New York. For him, making the playoffs would do the trick.
For the Steelers, winning a playoff game seems to be the bare minimum to make the experiment a success. That’s something the team didn’t do in any of Roethlisberger’s five final seasons in football — or in the three since he retired.
No one can figure out what the Cowboys are doing by waiting to sign their star players to contract extensions. They have even edge rusher Micah Parsons puzzled.
Parsons became eligible for a contract extension after the 2023 season. He still is waiting.
The four-time Pro Bowler acknowledged he plans to become the highest-paid non-quarterback in the league, and with edge rushers T.J. Watt and Trey Hendrickson also awaiting contract extensions, Parsons said it’s likely going to cost Jerry Jones more money.
“It’s going to cost them more,” Parsons told Clarence Hill of All City DLLS on Thursday.
Parsons and Jones confirmed to Hill they had a handshake deal in March, but Jones never called Parsons’ agent, David Mulugheta, to finalize it.
Parsons told Hill he has seen the deal Watt is seeking from the Steelers, and it is more than he and Jones discussed. Thus, Parsons expects that his final number will go higher than originally thought.
The highest-paid non-quarterback is Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who is making $40.25 million annually.
Parsons is hopeful of completing a deal before the Cowboys begin training camp on July 21. Otherwise, he said he will report but not practice.
He is headed into the final year of his rookie deal scheduled to make $24 million on the fifth-year option.
Last month’s incident at a Miami boxing event involving former NFL receiver Antonio Brown resulted in no arrests, at the time. That’s about to change.
David Ovalle of the Washington Post reports that a warrant has been issued for Brown’s arrest, accusing him of attempted murder with a firearm.
The warrant requires him to post $10,000 bond and to remain under house arrest pending trial.
Brown had claimed he was jumped at the event, and that he was released after telling the authorities his side of the story. Videos posted to social media seemed to include the sound of gunfire. The warrant cites witnesses who claim Brown was the shooter.
Police detectives reportedly obtained footage of what appears to be Brown punching another man, before taking the gun of a security officer and running toward the man Brown had punched. Per the warrant, cellphone video shows a pair of gunshots, as Brown approached the victim.
Several days later, the victim met with police detectives. He allegedly said that, after the initial fight had been broken up, Brown “began to run toward him with a firearm” and shot twice. The victim said he was possibly grazed in the neck.
Brown, who spent 12 years in the NFL, has yet to be arrested. It’s unclear whether he has retained counsel.
It is clear that Brown faces a very serious charge, which could result in his incarceration for an extended period of time.
The Steelers moved their training practices to the morning in 2024, but they are going back to the afternoon this summer.
Head coach Mike Tomlin discussed the change in plans for the team’s work in Latrobe. Tomlin said that he is hoping that the hotter weather at that time of day makes for a more prepared football team when the Steelers get to Week One in September.
“It wasn’t hot enough last year, to be quite honest with you,” Tomlin said, via the team’s facility. “Heat aids in the development of physical conditioning. It makes it a more stressful environment, and that’s what we go to camp for. We go to camp to get better, and if it’s a little bit more miserable later in the day, man, that’s what we want.”
The Steelers got out to an 10-3 start last season before fading to 10-7 and losing in the Wild Card round. If all goes according to plan this year, their summer work will help them put forth a more consistent effort this fall.
The new partnership between Steelers coach Mike Tomlin and Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers brings together two men who once squared off at the highest level of the game.
In Super Bowl XLV, Rodgers and the Packers defeated Tomlin and the Steelers. Now that they’re together, it’s only the second time that a quarterback has joined forces with a coach whom the quarterback beat in the Super Bowl.
The first time happened 32 years ago. And it involved a quarterback whom PFT Live co-host Chris Simms knows well. Very well. Extremely well.
But, apparently, not well enough to know that his father, Phil, played for coach Dan Reeves in 1993 — seven years after Phil and the Giants beat Reeves and the Broncos.
The video is attached. Give it a watch. If only to see Chris completely whiff on making the connection, despite the various hints he was getting.
Steelers edge rusher T.J. Watt’s decision to skip this week’s mandatory minicamp added some urgency toward his push for a new contract and it created some intrigue about what he will do if no new deal is in place by training camp.
Watt reported to camp, but did not practice before signing his current deal days before the start of the regular season. On Thursday, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin said he’s “not going to get into speculation” about Watt’s plans before adding that he feels positive about the two sides reaching agreement on another extension.
“I’m optimistic we’re going to get things done because we got two sides that want to get things done,” Tomlin said, via Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “When that’s going to occur I do not know.”
A report this month indicated the Steelers had put an offer on the table for Watt, but it clearly isn’t the one that he’s looking to get from the team. The next few weeks will provide both sides with a chance to bridge the gap.
Aaron Rodgers is officially a member of the Steelers and that means he is officially on the schedule for both of his former teams this season.
The Steelers will open the season on the road against the Jets and they will be home to face the Packers on Sunday night in Week Eight. The long buildup to Rodgers’ decision to sign with Pittsburgh gave all involved plenty of time to consider that they’d be facing Rodgers, which Packers head coach Matt LaFleur referenced when asked about facing the team’s former quarterback later this year.
“I totally anticipated this,” LaFleur said. “Probably took a little longer than even I anticipated, but it doesn’t shock me. It’ll be a great challenge for us. We all know what type of player he is and how good he is. I’m sure he’ll be telling everybody all our signals, so we’ll probably have to be playing that mind game with him a little bit.”
It’s hard to know exactly what either team will look like when they actually step on the field in October, but we do know that there will be a lot of insider knowledge both ways as the Packers prepare to meet Rodgers for the first time.
Steelers receiver DK Metcalf says he’s not going to miss any opportunities to learn from a four-time NFL MVP now that he has Aaron Rodgers as his quarterback.
“Just how cerebral he is and how he views the game,” Metcalf said, via Steelers.com. “I like the way he views the game from a receiver standpoint, but also from a quarterback standpoint. I think I can gain a lot of knowledge just from being around him because he’s seen a lot of football. I’m just trying to soak up as much information as I can.”
Although Rodgers didn’t actually sign with the Steelers until this week, he had been planning to join the team for months, and he and Metcalf began throwing together in March.
“I think it’s still a work in progress, we’re still growing,” said Metcalf. “Besides being teammates, I think he’s a great person off the field. I can learn a lot from him in life and about the game. When I was chilling with him one time, we were just doing trivia questions. We would name a player, and I would have to say their college or their nickname while they were playing. He’s a fun person to be around. He’s going to test me cerebrally. So, just looking forward to the continued conversations, the continued workouts. And hopefully we can put a product on the field that can last a lifetime.”
Now Metcalf is beginning to work with Rodgers at the Steelers’ facility.
“Just a step closer to football, a step closer to solidifying the team and the product that we’re going to put out there on the field this season,” Metcalf said. “Just excited to get to work. I know it’s a first look here in a team setting with Aaron, so just to see what type of teammate he is, just excited with everything that he brings to the table.”
