The three-year, $41 million contract that playmaking inside linebacker Patrick Queen agreed to with the Pittsburgh Steelers this week is — easily — the most valuable given out by the team to an external unrestricted free agent over the three decades since the NFL adopted true free agency.
In raw dollars, that is.
But what about (for lack of a better way of putting it) adjusting for inflation? And not just regular, bread-and-milk, gasoline-prices inflation, but an economic tour de force much stronger than that: inflation of the NFL’s salary cap.
After all, while the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates that prices have risen about 117% since February 1993, that only accounts for everyday goods. If those goods were franchise quarterbacks, Pro Bowl edge rushers — or even backup guards — the rate of inflation is much higher.
Try 538%. That’s the rate in which the NFL’s salary cap has gone up since it was introduced 31 years ago.
That’s instructive because it provides context for the Steelers’ marquee signing that year: future Hall of Fame outside linebacker Kevin Greene. The $5.35 million over three years he got was eye-popping then.
Today, that won’t even get you a punter.
(Indeed, the Steelers this week agreed to give Cameron Johnston $9 million to secure his services for three years).
But when compared via the context of the $34.608 million per-team salary cap in 1993, Greene’s average per-year compensation took up 5.15% of the Steelers’ cap.
That almost matches the 5.35% that Queen’s $13.67 million average annual salary swallows up of the Steelers’ $255.4 million cap for 2024.
With that in mind, here’s a look at the most expensive external unrestricted free agents signed by the Steelers in club history.
A couple of notes:
• The ranking is compiled by way of taking a contract’s average annual value and dividing it by the NFL’s salary cap number during the year it was signed.
• Yearly salary-cap numbers are courtesy of spotrac.com.
• All historical contracts are sourced through news reports of the day. (Remember, the internet functionally did not exist when the first NFL free agents signed).
• Re-signings of their own players do not count for this exercise.
• Only true unrestricted free agents qualify, making Joe Haden’s 2017 signing ineligible. Haden was cut by the Cleveland Browns at the end of training camp and joined the Steelers on the eve of their final preseason game that year. Haden’s three-year, $27 million deal made for $9 million in average annual value that accounted for 5.39% of the NFL’s then-$167 million cap.
The top 10, in reverse order:
10. S Mike Mitchell, 2014, 3.76% of cap
5-year, $25 million contract — $5 million AAV with a $133 million league cap
9. CB Dwayne Washington, 1998, 4.20% of cap
4-year, $8.8 million contract — $2.2 million AAV with a $52.388 million league cap
8. G James Daniels, 2022, 4.24% of cap
3-year, $26.5 million contract — $8.83 million AAV with a $208.2 million league cap
7. DT Kimo von Oelhoffen, 2000, 4.42% of cap
4-year, $11 million contract — $2.75 million AAV with a $62.172 million league cap
6. CB Steven Nelson, 2019, 4.52% of cap
3-year, $25.5 million contract — $8.5 million AAV with a $188.2 million league cap
5. OLB Kevin Greene, 1993, 5.15% of cap
3-year, $5.35 million contract — $1.783 million AAV with a $34.6 million league cap
4. ILB Patrick Queen, 2024, 5.35% of cap
3-year, $41 million contract — $13.67 million AAV with a $255.4 million league cap
3. C Jeff Hartings, 2001, 6.01% of cap
6-year, $24.3 million contract — $4.05 million AAV with a $67.405 million league cap
2. G Will Wolford, 1996, 6.07% of cap
4-year, $9.9 million contract — $2.475 million AAV with a $40.753 million league cap
1. Wayne Gandy, 1999, 6.12% of cap
4-year, $14 million contract — $3.5M AAV with a $57.228 million league cap
