The Pittsburgh Steelers reinforced their defense by “promoting from within” so to speak on the second day of free agency when they resigned defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi and safety Damontae Kazee.
Both were excellent football moves, but there’s a real downside for bloggers.
Both men arrived as potential short timers. It was an open question whether they would remain in Pittsburgh. So it made little sense to try to learn to spell their names. Now we don’t have a choice.
T.J. Watt and Larry Ogunjobi. Combine to make a critical stop. Photo Credit: Karl Roser, Steelers.com
Larry Ogunjobi, by far the one with the most difficult name to spell, signed a three-year contract totaling $28.75 million. Information on how much is guaranteed hasn’t been released, but just over 21 million coming in the first two years of the deal. Ogunjobi’s injury history explains the lack of detail about guaranteed money and his contract’s structure.
- Damontae Kazee signed a 2 year contact but terms of the deal have not been released.
That latter factoid could spell hope for Terrell Edmunds. The conventional wisdom heading into free agency was that the Kazee/Edmunds decision was an “either/or” proposition for the Steelers. One would sign and the other they would let walk.
That still may happen, but the fact that the details of Damontae Kazee’s contract haven’t surfaced more than 24 hours after news of his signing broke suggests that it is for a modest sum – otherwise his agent would have made sure reporters knew how much he just made his client.
Spillane to Las Vegas
One player who won’t be back is inside linebacker Robert Spillane. Spillane is a Steelers success story. He went from starting 2020 as the one player the Steelers couldn’t afford to end up playing, to they guy who kept Devin Bush to the bench by the end of 2022.
He’s someone you’d want to keep in Pittsburgh. But the Raiders signed him to a 2 year deal worth 9 million dollars with 4 million dollars in guarantees – that’s a lot of money to pay someone who generally leaves the field on passing downs.
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