For the most part, the Pittsburgh Steelers do not allow the majority of the starting players that they really want to keep around to even get through the final year of their contracts. I’m talking about players like Ben Roethlisberger and Maurkice Pouncey, Cameron Heyward and, soon, T.J. Watt.
There is a secondary level that they understand will be a toss-up as to whether or not they’ll be able to keep, and they end up having to compete to keep them on the open market. This has happened in the past with guys like Ramon Foster and Ryan Clark, for example.