Who has the worst contract on the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2022?

The Pittsburgh Steelers have some contracts that must be terminated in 2022, but which player currently has the worst deal on the team? 

From time to time, a player will come along who is worth his weight in gold. After playing out his rookie contract, the team sometimes finds players who are willing to take team-friendly deals or prove that they are worth even more than they are making on their second or third contract.

More often than not, however, players underperform on their deals and are eventually released as a result. At the moment, the Pittsburgh Steelers don’t have any deals on players outside of their rookie contracts that are looked at as spectacular savings. But they do have several players who currently have some pretty bad contracts.

Some of this is the team’s doing, as the Steelers have restructured and backloaded certain players with deals that no longer look team-friendly. Other deals they have signed in free agency or acquired via trade.

So which player currently has the worst contract on the Steelers heading into the 2022 season?

Which Steelers player has the worst contract?

A few years back, I wrote about how Stephon Tuitt had one of the best contracts on the team. Tuitt signed a five-year deal for $60 million back in 2017. At $12 million per season, Tuitt looked like a bargain compared to what defensive linemen were signed for shortly after him. Now players like Leonard Williams, Chris Jones, and DeForest Buckner all have contracts that net them over $20 million annually.

Unfortunately, Tuitt’s discount deal didn’t last long. In an effort to save money, the Steelers have since restructured and backloaded Tuitt’s deal twice — giving the team larger cap hits later in his deal and forcing dead money into the future on a voidable-year contact.

In 2022, Tuitt is set to cost Pittsburgh roughly $14 million against the cap. This is especially concerning when you take into consideration that Tuitt missed the entire 2021 season. If he does elect to return to the field in 2022 (which is looking unlikely), who knows what kind of shape he will be in.

Still, Tuitt doesn’t have the worst contract currently on the team. That belongs solely to linebacker, Joe Schobert. Though the trade for Schobert was relatively low-risk (just a sixth-round pick), Pittsburgh was required to take on the remainder of his five-year, $53.75 million deal he signed with the Jaguars in 2020.

Clearly, Schobert didn’t come close to playing up to his contact numbers this past season in Pittsburgh. The good news is that, because Schobert’s guaranteed money had been paid by the Jaguars, the Steelers would actually save $7.8 million in 2022 by cutting him this offseason.

If Pittsburgh decided to hold onto him, Schobert would cost them $9.7 million toward the cap this year. That number jumps up to $11.2 million in both 2022 and 2023, according to Over the Cap.

Fortunately, Schobert is almost guaranteed to be gone because of his awful deal. The former Pro Bowl linebacker didn’t come close to living up to lofty expectations in 2021, and it’s time for the Steelers to cut their losses.

The Steelers have a few bad contracts currently on the team with players like Stephon Tuitt and Zach Banner; however, Joe Schobert takes the cake with three years remaining on his $53.75 million contract. I expect him to be released early in the offseason in an effort to save money for 2022.