Pittsburgh Steelers DT Cameron Heyward and K Chris Boswell are both in the news on Thursday as they reportedly want their respective contracts addressed before the start of the 2025 regular season. If that news for both players comes as a surprise, it really shouldn’t. Allow me to explain why both have great cases for a raise and how the Steelers can easily fix those situations with the two players in the next four weeks.
Let me start first with Boswell and his contract situation. I’m not going to go deep into his contract desires because I already did that way back in April. In short, Boswell, who is currently scheduled to earn just $3.12 million in 2025, is criminally underpaid going into the 2025 season. While he does have two years left on his current contract, the Steelers can easily satisfy him by moving most of his 2026 base salary that he’s scheduled to earn into 2025. Boswell probably deserves a little bit more new cash on top of that.
Making Boswell the highest-paid cash-earning kicker in the NFL for the 2025 season won’t be hard to do. One would expect that the Steelers will make that happen prior to Week 1. Boswell’s 2025 cap charge would likely increase from giving him more cash, but that rise would not be significant.
Boswell is arguably the NFL’s best kicker right now and thus he deserves to have a commensurate 2025 cash total.
As for Heyward’s situation, it seems as though Steelers fans and media members are struggling with him wanting an adjustment to his current contract. An adjustment should be the case, however. There is a lot of misinformation circulating about him concerning the contract extension that he signed just last September.
For starters, let me remind everyone that while Heyward did sign a two-year contract extension just prior to the start of the 2024 regular season, that deal was just a glorified restructuring. What does that mean? Well, Heyward entered the 2024 offseason scheduled to earn $16 million for the season. All the Steelers did was to take a chunk ($14.7 million) of the $16 million base salary that Heyward as already scheduled to earn in 2024 and turned it into a signing bonus. They added two more years to his contract as part of that restructuring. Those two additional years (2025 & 2026) included non-guaranteed base salaries of $1.3 million and March roster bonuses of $13.45 million and $12.95 million, respectively. Full guarantees did not exist for either roster bonus, either.
But Heyward did get a new deal, or at least an extension, right? Yes, in theory he did, but Heyward did not pocket any additional cash in 2024 (beyond the $16 million he was already owed before his extension). Heyward’s only gain from last September is that the $16 million he was owed went from unguaranteed to fully guaranteed.
Before we move on, you had better re-read the last two paragraphs and make sure you have both fully digested.
So, here we are now in 2025, on the heels of Heyward having a fantastic 2024 season and him not getting any new cash last year to boot. He is now scheduled to earn just $14.75 million in cash for the 2025 season. $1.3 million of that is base salary, and the other $13.45 million he earned back in March by being on the roster. That means that Heyward will earn just $30.75 million in total for 2024 and 2025. He is obscenely underpaid, and if anyone can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you.
What should Heyward’s target be when it comes to his 2025 cash earnings? Well, Indianapolis Colts DT DeForest Buckner will earn $23 million in 2025 cash. That should be Heyward’s target number for his cash total this season, if we are honest and fair. On the low side, Heyward should be looking to top the 2025 cash total of Seattle Seahawks DT Leonard Williams, which is $20.85 million. Remember, Heyward is due just $14.75 million in 2025 cash right now.
As previously mentioned, Heyward is due to get a 2026 March roster bonus of $12.95 million as things stand right now. That’s not fully guaranteed, however. If the Steelers were to pay him half of that roster bonus as a signing bonus this summer, his 2025 cash total would jump up to $21.225 million, which would be more than Williams and a little less than Buckner. That’s a nice range for Heyward, in my opinion.
If Heyward received half of his 2026 roster bonus this offseason as a signing bonus, his 2025 salary cap charge would only increase by $3.2375 million. The Steelers could easily absorb that increase in addition to throwing the extra $6.475 million in cash his way for the 2025 season.
If Heyward cannot secure additional cash from the Steelers this year, at the very least, he should demand that the team fully guarantees his 2026 March roster bonus.
How and when might these situations with Boswell and Heyward ultimately play out? After training camp concludes and the preseason ends is perfect timing for both. After all, the Steelers should ensure both players make it to Week 1 fully healthy before adjusting contracts. As for the how, I passionately believe both will wind up getting cash raises for the 2025 season when the smoke finally clears in probably remarkably similar ways to what I laid out in this post.
As for what might ultimately happen with Boswell and Heyward for the 2026 season, that’s a worry for another day. It obviously depends on how both perform in 2025. Could both be looking for additional 2026 money a year from now? Sure, that’s possible, but that is a bridge too far to worry about crossing currently.
In the meantime, don’t worry about Heyward and Boswell. Both will be in uniform and ready to go by the start of the 2025 regular season, likely with more cash in their pockets.
