The Steelers have signed Pat Freiermuth to a four-year, $48.4-million contract extension. Freiermuth's agency, Athletes First, announced the deal. The contract gives Freiermuth the ninth-highest average annual value among tight ends, and will kick in after the upcoming season.
Needless to say, Freiermuth's teammates were beyond excited for him. They all celebrated with him when news broke.
"We were just celebrating Pat upstairs," Russell Wilson said of Freiermuth after Friday's practice at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. "We're just so happy for Pat. He's worked his tail off. Just his composure, his leadership ... even though he's such a young, talented player, he exudes this leadership and confidence about him. It's really tremendous."
Freiermuth is coming off a disappointing 2023 campaign in which he battled injuries and was hampered by a limited offense, catching only 32 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns. But the season prior, Freiermuth flashed a lot of his potential as a receiving threat at the tight end position, catching 63 passes for 732 yards and two touchdowns. Freiermuth also caught seven touchdown passes as a rookie in 2021, when Ben Roethlisberger was his quarterback.
The Steelers are obviously investing in what Freiermuth can become, especially in a new offense under Arthur Smith, who puts a lot of value and use out of the tight end position. Freiermuth possesses a lot of favorable traits to develop into one of the better receiving tight ends in the game. Now that he has a coordinator who knows what to do with tight ends, this could be a year in which Freiermuth's numbers finally match his potential. And with the Steelers locking him up long term before the season, they could be saving themselves some money if Freiermuth does, in fact, break out this season.
Of the few internal candidates for contract extensions, Freiermuth was one of the priorities. The team waited to ramp up talks with the likes of Freiermuth, Cam Heyward and others until the situation with Brandon Aiyuk was resolved, which obviously did not go the Steelers' way. Once the Steelers found out Aiyuk was staying with the 49ers, that paved the way for Omar Khan to get to work on extending players such as Heyward and Freiermuth. Heyward's three-year, $45-million extension was finalized Tuesday.
Going into the final year of his rookie contract, Freiermuth ranked 47th among NFL tight ends in AAV, even ranking behind former Penn State teammate and tight end Brenton Strange. Thus, I'm told that Freiermuth was made a priority when the process of ramping up extension talks started last week, and negotiations with Freiermuth's camp progressed prior to the weekend and obviously a deal was able to get done prior to the season.
It was important for the Steelers to get these extensions done before the season kicked off, as Khan plans to maintain the team policy that they don't negotiate contracts during the season. With Freiermuth's and Heyward's deals done, the page can turn to football. And, Freiermuth can pick up the check the next time the offense goes out to dinner.
"It's awesome. Definitely celebrating, making some jokes with him about how he's paying for the next offensive dinner," Justin Fields said Friday. "I'm glad he was able to work that out. I'm excited to see him play Sunday."
