Last off-season there was a lot of talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers and Mike Wallace working on a contract extension, but it never happened. Wallace held out of training camp and the entire pre-season and struggled during the regular season. His stats all dropped and his dropped passes increased. Wallace is now with the Miami Dolphins, though he hasn’t forgotten about Pittsburgh, and now the Steelers face a similar situation with Emmanuel Sanders.
The Steelers matched an offer sheet given to Sanders by the New England Patriots and now hold his rights for one more season. Unlike Wallace, Sanders is under contract and will not be holding out at any point during the off-season. He will, however, become a free agent after the 2013 season and like Wallace he could look to bolt for more money when that option becomes available.
The way Emmanuel Sanders sees things, the Pittsburgh Steelers did what they needed to do to keep him in Pittsburgh for the 2013 season. Sanders, a fourth-year player with the Steelers vocalized his feelings about negotiations that have begun again on KDKA-FM Thursday.
In April, Sanders was sweating it out whether he’d be in Foxborough, with the New England Patriots, for the 2013 NFL season. Almost at the last minute of time in which the Steelers had to choose whether or not they would match the deal they decided to bring back Sanders for at least one more season.
“The whole time I was thinking, I’m still a Pittsburgh Steeler, I was still out here in Pittsburgh,” Sanders said. “It definitely came down to the wire around about (that) four o’clock, five o’clock area (on the April 14 deadline). I really started thinking like, ‘OK, maybe they won’t match the tender, I’ve got to be out in New England tomorrow, so should I start packing? Should I not start packing?’ ”
Although there is no word from the Steelers’ front office about extension talks, there seldom are until the decisions have already been made. Sanders explained on the radio show that there shouldn’t be any worries that a deal won’t be completed.
“You guys keep talking about the contract,” he said. “You guys won’t let the contract go, but you know, at the end of the day, I’m telling you that I’m honest when I say I’m not worried about a contract. The contracts will come.”
Sanders words are telling. Keenan Lewis, who left in free agency this off-season to the New Orleans Saints, said similar things last off-season. Why would Sanders want a deal now instead of waiting until next off-season? The answer is that he probably doesn’t want a deal now.
2013 will be Sanders first year as a full-time starter and he will have the chance to increase his value and make more money next off-season. He will also have the ability to raise his value next off-season when he can negotiate with 32 teams; currently he could only negotiate with one.
“It would have to be a very good deal for us to sign a multiyear agreement,” Jordan Woy, Emmanuel Sanders agent said when extension talks first came up in April. The Steelers aren’t a team that typically over pays for players; especially for a player like Sanders, who has battled foot injuries so far in his career.
So given what Woy and Sanders have said and the Steelers history with signing wide receivers vs letting them walk it seems as though Manny is set to hit free agency in 2014. The only question left to answer is whether or not he will play well enough in 2013 to price himself out of Pittsburgh as Wallace did over the first four years of his NFL career.
