"No, not at all. I was really just happy that they got theirs done, you know. I came in with those guys, me, Herb, and Keeanu, and even Washington. We all came in together. Those are my guys. So I was ecstatic that they got paid. It's well-deserved. It's well-earned. So I'm happy that they get to feed their families and do what they want to do with their money that they earn."

If anybody is planning on purchasing tickets for a Steelers home game this season, there's some cool stuff attached to some of the home games.

Bungals 9/27 - Hall of Honor game, new class introduced on the field

Brownies 11/1 - Salute to service 🫡, honoring veterans

Broncos 11/27 - Black Friday game. Steelers first Black Friday home game in team history and our first Friday regular season game since 1946 📜

Texans 12/6 - Sunday Night Football, Alumni weekend and My Cause My Cleats

Panthers TBD - final home game/Thank you fans game with giveaways through the game. One fan wins a black and gold F-150 at halftime

Looking forward to week 3 against the Bungals, coming all the way from California to support the guys!

Wetjen is gonna be a helpful returner for us this szn. His return production kept getting better and better through college, the one and only back-to-back Jet Award winner.

My favorite thing about him this offseason is Danny Crossman pointing out his “catch-run-cut” ability and adding that vertical one cut returners have had their success under the new NFL return rules, Wetjen has that background.

He’s far from new to returning kicks. We got a look at his ability to score against Buffalo week 4 pre-szn, when he reversed the field and took a punt 45 yds to the house.

We clearly believed in Wetjen enough to use a 4th rd on him. Now that he is KR1/PR1, I’m excited to see how many TDs he‘ll be able to rack up this szn, as well as his yard averages as the year goes on.

3 PR TDs or 3 KR TDs would set a Steelers single season record for either return category.

Y’all think we actually see a couple return TDs from Wetjen this year or he’ll possibly break our team record ?

Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. returned to practice on Tuesday.

However, the contract dispute that has lingered through training camp remains unresolved. 

Never forget that the new Rams duo of Aaron Donald and Myles Garrett are literal thieves who robbed Trent Jordan Watt of two rightfully earned Defensive Player of the Year in 2020 and 2023. The lame stream media wants you to forget this happened.

With news that JPJ is waiting for the "guys upstairs" to figure out if he is playing week one, I thought it would be useful to review what the NFL collective bargaining agreement says about player participation, discipline that can arise from not playing, and the risks JPJ runs by holding out.

For background: I taught collective bargaining and contract administration at Penn State (We Are) for four years before moving to upstate, NY.

After Le'Veon Bell held out in 2018, the NFL negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement. In the new agreement, there are much stiffer penalties for players who hold out in both training camp and the regular season. Specifically, Article 8(1)(b) states (bolding mine):

A player shall not receive an Accrued Season for any League Year in which the player is under contract to a Club and in which (i) he failed to report to the Club’s preseason training camp on that player’s mandatory reporting date; or (ii) the player thereafter failed to perform his contract services for the Club for a material period of time, unless he demonstrates to the Impartial Arbitrator extreme personal hardship causing such failure to report or perform, such as severe illness or death in the family. The determination of the Impartial Arbitrator shall be made within thirty days of the application by the player, and shall be based upon all information relating to such hardship submitted by such date. The determination of the Impartial Arbitrator shall be final and binding upon all parties.

Section (i), combined with new financial penalties for holdouts that teams cannot waive, has resulted in the infamous "hold-in", where players report to camp but do not fully participate.

Section (ii) concerns accrual of service time. For a player to become an unrestricted free agent, they must accrue 4 years of service time in the NFL. Should JPJ not accrue an additional year of service time during the 2026-2027 league year, he would only qualify for restricted free agent status. In that case, the Steelers could use a range of options to retain his service, most likely a "first-round tender". In this case, if another team offers JPJ a contract, the Steelers could either match that contract or choose to take the acquiring team's first-round pick, whichever they prefer.

The difference between the first-round tender for a RFA and "franchise tag" for an unrestricted free agent is the price: a 2027 first round tender would come in somewhere around $8.5M, whereas the franchise tag would be somewhere around $23M. Further, if the Steelers retain JPJ using a first-round tender next year, the Steelers could choose to franchise tag JPJ in 2028-2029.

If JPJ does not play, he would most likely claim that he was injured, not holding out. There are provisions in the collective bargaining agreement governing player health and fitness to perform. That's a whole separate conversation; happy discuss in the comments if folks like.

Chris Jones held out into the season for a new deal, but he was already under contract and did not need to qualify for unrestricted free agency. Given JPJ's service time, he runs a serious risk of not qualifying for unrestricted free agency if he holds out into Week 1.

SAF Juanyeh Thomas

Safety depth was already a concern throughout camp — that was before the Steelers placed DeShon Elliott on injured reserve, forcing him to miss at least the first four games. Cut by the Colts at the end of camp, Thomas now sits fourth on the Steelers’ depth chart behind Jaquan Brisker, Rayshawn Jenkins and rookie Robert Spears-Jennings. Thomas began his career as a 2022 UDFA in Dallas, where he overlapped with Mike McCarthy. Before that, the 6-foot, 212-pound safety was a core special teamer at Georgia Tech. That’s likely the area he’d contribute most, even if there are injuries to the safeties. Thomas has appeared in 36 games between 2023 and 2025, with four starts. He’s recorded 62 tackles and five passes defended.

RB Travis Homer

A special-teams ace who often served as the personal protector on the punt unit during training camp, Homer was firmly in the RB3 competition. (In fact, I expected him to make the team on my final projection.) However, the Steelers chose Eli Heidrenreich’s return ability and offensive skill set over a four-phase special teamer like Homer. The Steelers might consider elevating Homer for particular matchups, or in the event any of the core special teamers are injured.

DL Esezi Otomewo

A 27-year-old journeyman, Otomewo enjoyed his most productive year as a pro last season. The 6-5, 282-pound defensive lineman appeared in 12 games, with nine tackles and one sack. Through most of camp, he sat right on the bubble. The Steelers opted for youth over experience.

My uncle is awesome. I named my first kid after him. I visited him recently and he told me he doesn’t have anywhere to hang this up anymore and asked if I wanted it — of course I did! Just wanted to share 😊 it has two different certificates of authenticity on the back of it.

I’ll be having some family in town for the weekend of September 18th-20th. Does anyone have any recommendations for bars to go to for the week 2 Steelers vs Patriots game that Sunday afternoon? Thanks!

I’m sure these kind of questions pop up alot but I’m trying to coordinate a 10hour drive to take my family to the colts game in October but the prices for 4 tickets just seem nuts? We did this trip some 10 years ago when my kids were little and we barely had any extra money put a small amount on a credit card but got 4 tickets for a Sunday night football game and stayed at a nice place downtown on top of all the doubters and food. I’m making double what I was back then and just looking at tickets and hotel alone I gave my wife a “I dunno about this” look

Is locking in some $700 for 4 tickets in what looks like barely mediocre seats worth it now or waiting to see if prices come down or is this shit just f’d all the time now and I gotta look at this as some kind of big family moment to justify the costs.

Yes he wrote a letter about reflecting on his time with Pittsburgh and thanking the franchise and the city, but how great would it have been if he had a proper chance to have a giant media scrum to say farwell? Heck, maybe a public goodbye outside of Heinz Field (yes, I still call it that!) and have a sea of fans waving the Terrible Towel to send farewell to Tomlin

If you haven’t watched this EP of Not Just Football with Cam yet, do it. The whole EDGE room is on and it’s hilarious 😂 Obviously these dudes are dogs, but seeing how comfortable TJ, Highsmith, Herbig and Sawyer are around each other is my favorite part. You can tell that room is genuinely tight. Really good watch.

(Updated 4:30 pm, roster is full)

We can keep 16 players plus 1 international exemption player on the practice squad. signings start at 1pm EST.

WR - Max Hurleman

WR - Brandon Smith

OL - Doug Nester

OL - Steven Jones

RB - Lee Nichols

RB - Travis Homer

TE - Lake McRee

DL - Esezi Otomewo

DT - Kyler Baugh

ILB - Jacoby Windmon (international pathways exemption)

OLB - Julius Welschof

DB - Doneiko Slaughter

S - Juanyeh Thomas

S - Sebastian Castro

Latest 3 additions.

WR - Brandon Johnson

LB - Bradyn Swinson

DB - Carlin Vigers

Some guys from my list:

QB

Dante Moore - Oregon

Jayden Maiava - USC

Darian Mensah - Miami

Drew Mestemaker - OK State

Lanorris Sellers - South Carolina

WR

Cam Coleman - Texas

Ryan Wingo - Texas

Charlie Becker - Indiana

Nick Marsh - Indiana

Omarion Miller - ASU (Coached by Hines Ward)

Bryant Wesco - Clemson

KJ Duff - Rutgers

SAF

KJ Bolden - Georgia

Koi Perich - Oregon

Tae Johnson - ND

Ty Benefield - LSU

Bray Hubbard - Bama

ILB

Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa - ND

Sammy Brown - Clemson

Rasheem Biles - Texas

Xavier Watkins - Auburn

This forgotten play is a top 20 best Steelers play ever if we recover. Channelling his best #43 impression, this dive is marked in my head.

Bring back ERob. Loved his hits on D.Henry when he played for us.

#50 is such a beast of a number for ILB

I see that Kobalt has expanded their line of mini toolboxes. They’ve added a lineup of NFL teams. By my count, there are 31 teams. Guess which team is missing? Why no love for the Steelers?? Did the teams have to approve the designs?

So excited to hear that Navy's Eli Heidenreich made the Steelers 53 man roster! I love that he's a local kid following his dreams who's now playing for the team he followed growing up. Bravo Zulu LT Heidenreich! 💙💛🖤💛

Contract loading???

One thing that gets me freaked out about salary cap metrics is "dead money". Of course we do not want to be in the Miami Dolphins situation, but I read about how some dead money is irrelevant. I guess another way to look at it is, we are net gainers: The Dolphins are paying Ramsey over 20 million and our total dead money is only 18 and change.

But when it comes to these trades. We picked up B Jones spending a first round pick, but trading him for far less. Same thing with Johnson, we spent a 3rd round pick but got a 6th round in return.

Those seem like failures to me.

Thoughts?

QBs: Aaron Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, Drew Allar

RBs: Jaylen Warren, Rico Dowdle, Eli Heidenreich

WRs: DK Metcalf, Michael Pittman Jr., Roman Wilson, Germie Bernard, Kaden Wetjen, Ben Skowronek

TEs/FB: Pat Freiermuth, Darnell Washington, Robert Tonyan, Riley Nowakowski

OL: Troy Fautanu, Mason McCormick, Zach Frazier, Spencer Anderson, Brock Hoffman, Dylan Cook, Max Iheanachor, Ryan McCollum, Gennings Dunker

DL: Cam Heyward, Derrick Harmon, Keeanu Benton, Yahya Black, Gabriel Rubio, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Kevin Jobity Jr.

OLB: T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Nick Herbig, Jack Sawyer

ILB: Patrick Queen, Payton Wilson, Carson Bruener, Cole Holcomb

CBs: Joey Porter Jr., Jalen Ramsey, Jamel Dean, Asante Samuel Jr, Daylen Everette, Brandin Echols

S: Jaquan Brisker, Rayshawn Jenkins, Robert Spears-Jennings

STs: Cam Johnston, Chris Boswell, Christian Kuntz

According to spotrac