{"id":83354,"date":"2025-05-27T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/83354\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T19:07:14","slug":"pittsburgh-steelers-without-several-stars-to-start-otas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/83354\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers without several stars to start OTAs"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH — Multiple Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> stars were not at the team\u2019s opening practice for their voluntary OTAs. <\/p>\n

In videos posted, Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt<\/a> and wide receiver DK Metcalf<\/a> were the notable missing players.<\/p>\n

Metcalf has been in Pittsburgh at various points throughout the first two phases of OTAs and has started mentoring younger players. He will likely show up at some point over the next two weeks before mandatory minicamp.<\/p>\n

Watt has generally missed a week or two of OTAs, even when his contract was not in question. So, this is not necessarily contract-related. <\/p>\n

The Steelers star should see his extension coming soon, which could be a mega-extension that equals or tops Myles Garrett\u2019s<\/a> huge $40 million per year deal with the Cleveland Browns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old edge rusher remains one of the NFL\u2019s elites. At the annual league meetings last week, general manager Omar Khan said the team hopes to see Watt finish his career with the Steelers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get into the contract numbers, but if you\u2019re referring to T.J. [Watt], I assume, I\u2019ll just say that I\u2019m very hopeful that T.J. will finish his career as a Steeler,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

Steelers safety DeShon Elliott said star cornerback Darius Slay was not at OTAs either, but he was looking forward to meeting him when he showed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he gets here, he\u2019ll get here. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be a great addition for us\u2026he\u2019ll be a natural leader on defense,” Elliott said.<\/p>\n

Notable stars who showed up and spoke to the media were defensive lineman Cam Heyward, linebacker Patrick Queen, and tight end Pat Freiermuth. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH — Multiple Pittsburgh Steelers stars were not at the team\u2019s opening practice for their voluntary OTAs. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,6,3845,3846,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-83354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nflraw2024","11":"tag-nflraw24","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","14":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","15":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114581369260080074","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}