On Monday Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joe Haden sat down for a one-on-one interview with Mark Kaboly of The Athletic and revealed that he only wants to play as long as he’s still capable of starting. Haden, who is 32 and entering his 12th NFL season, went on to say that he “would rather have a contract [for] more than this year because I want to end my career” in Pittsburgh. When Kaboly asked if he had approached the Steelers to ask for a contract extension, Haden was vague: “It is a real tight situation right now and we are trying to figure it out,” he said. “We have priority levels here so I have to see what happens with my boy T.J. [Watt] first.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, on Tuesday ESPN senior NFL insider Adam Schefter reported that Haden’s agent, Drew Rosenhaus, has approached the team about an extension.
As noted by Schefter, Haden is entering the last year of the contract extension he inked in September 2019. According to overthecap.com, he is scheduled to earn a base salary of $7 million in 2021, with a total cap number of $15.575 million.
Clearly, the Steelers still have high regard for Haden. For one, they chose to retain him during this past offseason, as opposed to a much younger Steven Nelson. But it’s less certain that the Steelers would want to give him a high-dollar extension at the age of 32. Never mind the fact that the organization has a much bigger priority in terms of trying to extend All-Pro outside linebacker T.J. Watt, who is not practicing with the team as negotiations continue.
Haden has been with the Steelers since 2017, signing a three-year, $27 million deal with Pittsburgh just a day after he was released by the Cleveland Browns. Haden spent the first seven seasons of his career with the Browns after Cleveland selected him No. 7 overall in the 2010 NFL Draft out of the University of Florida.
The Athletic Names Jack Lambert to Its All-Time Top 100 List
In another development from Monday, The Athletic added Hall of Fame Steelers linebacker Jack Lambert to its All-Time Top 100 NFL Players list, ranking the “scariest looking player in NFL history” at No. 37. Lambert is the sixth former Steelers player to make the list thus far, following Dermontti Dawson (No. 99), Mel Blount and Terry Bradshaw (at No. 71 and No. 69, respectively), with Mike Webster at No. 57 and Jack Ham at No. 52.
Tight End Dax Raymond Receives an Injury Settlement (Again)
Meanwhile, on Monday the Steelers released tight end Dax Raymond from injured reserve with an injury settlement.
The move comes less than two weeks after the team waived him (injured); a day later he was added to Pittsburgh’s injured reserve list, as no team put in a waiver claim for him.
Notably, the Steelers followed the same procedure with Raymond last summer. On Aug. 22, 2020, the team released Raymond with the designation waived/injured, having signed him little more than a month earlier. They went on to release him with an injury settlement nine days later.
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