Steelers Sign 24 Year Old Edge Rusher Nick Herbig To a $100M Deal

 

The Steelers Paid Nick Herbig Like a Star

Four years, $100 million for a player who's never started a full season — and why getting it done before Joey Porter Jr. is exactly the right order.

The Steelers have agreed to terms with edge rusher Nick Herbig on a four-year, $100 million extension that includes $42 million guaranteed, per NFL Network's Mike Garafolo and ESPN's Adam Schefter. Herbig, who turns the page on a rookie deal that paid him under $5 million total, is now signed long term at $25 million a year — and says he wants to be a "Steeler for life” 

Pittsburgh just made a player who has never been a full-time starter the second-highest-paid pass rusher on its own roster — ahead of Alex Highsmith, an actual starter, at $17 million. Behind only T.J. Watt and his $40-million-plus. 

A day before the deal, one veteran beat writer called signing Herbig this summer a "very steep hill to climb." The conventional wisdom said Joey Porter Jr. should be first in line, and that Herbig was the trickier, maybe-next-year problem.

So why did Herbig go first? Because the number was easy to agree on — even if it was a big one.

That's the part worth sitting with. Herbig isn't a backup in any sense that matters except the depth chart. On a snap-for-snap basis he's been one of the most efficient pass rushers in football, stuck behind two highly paid teammates and producing anyway: a career-high 7.5 sacks last season, second on the team and ahead of Watt during a down year for the former Defensive Player of the Year. For his career: 16 sacks, nine forced fumbles, 32 quarterback hits, 23 tackles for loss. He's 24. By every per-snap measure, he's been playing like a starter the Steelers couldn't fit on the field.

And the market for that player is terrifying. This offseason alone, Jaelan Phillips landed $120 million, Trey Hendrickson $112 million, Odafe Oweh $96 million. If Herbig walks into 2027 free agency off another season like his last, he's a nine-figure player on the open market and Pittsburgh is bidding against 31 other teams. Twenty-five million a year isn't an overpay in that light — it's cost certainty. The Steelers bought a year early, before the price went up. That's the whole bet, and it's a good one.

It also explains the order. Edge money is brutally well-defined right now — Phillips, Hendrickson, and Oweh drew the band, so the Herbig conversation was essentially binary: here's the number, do you want to be a Steeler for life or roll the dice in March? He answered the former. Locked and loaded, done.

Joey Porter Jr. is a different kind of negotiation, and that's not a snub — it's math. Corner money is a wider range than edge money, and Porter is going to measure himself against the top of the market while the Steelers value him a notch below it. He'll point at the Trent McDuffies of the world; Pittsburgh will point at the middle. There's real respect in this — they clearly see him as the guy at the position — but respect doesn't close a gap that size quickly. They'll find common ground eventually. They'll just have to grind to get there.

My bet for the next domino isn't Porter, though — it's Darnell Washington. For the same reason Herbig fell early: if the Steelers put a fair, clean market number in front of him, he takes it. Something in the neighborhood of $8 million a year over four years feels like a deal both sides sign without a fight. Tight end isn't a position where the numbers get exotic, and Washington has every reason to bank security with the team that drafted him.

That's the through-line of this whole stretch for Pittsburgh: pay your ascending homegrown players before the market forces your hand, and save the long, grinding negotiations for the spots where the price tag is genuinely up for debate. Herbig was the easy yes — not because the money was small, but because everyone already knew what it would take. The Steelers paid him like a star a year before he gets the chance to become one full-time.

If he plays the way he has, they'll look back on $25 million as a bargain.