{"id":858866,"date":"2026-04-07T12:27:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/858866\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:27:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:27:23","slug":"steelers-were-just-shocked-to-sign-jaquan-brisker-so-cheap-kaboly-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/858866\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers ‘Were Just Shocked’ To Sign Jaquan Brisker So Cheap, Kaboly Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Steelers may not know exactly where and how much Jaquan Brisker will play<\/a> right now; they\u2019re just happy they have him. And more specifically, according to Mark Kaboly, they\u2019re happy to have him at the price for which they signed him. Still just 26 in his fifth season, he has plenty of experience, but also some injury history.<\/p>\n

\u201cSafeties are strange, especially in free agency. You\u2019ve got a handful of top-level ones, and then even the ones that are not much worse or are in that second tier get paid a whole hell of a lot less\u201d, Kaboly mused on the Kaboly + Mack podcast<\/a>. \u201cLike the Jaquan Briskers, who the Steelers were just shocked that they were able to get him for $5.5 million. There\u2019s no way that they thought\u2014I know that they didn\u2019t think that they\u2019d get him for $5.5 million\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This offseason, the Steelers shook their safety group up in a major way. They let Kyle Dugger, Chuck Clark, Jabrill Peppers, and Miles Killebrew all walk, for example. With DeShon Elliott returning from injury and Jalen Ramsey in that role, they signed Jaquan Brisker as a free agent. And he came on just a one-year, $5.5 million contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A former second-round pick of the Bears in 2022, Jaquan Brisker has started all 52 games in which he\u2019s played. He has 342 career tackles, including 12 for loss, with 7 sacks, 4 interceptions, and 4 forced fumbles. Last season, he played 17 games for the first time in his career<\/a> after missing most of the 2024 season due to concussions stemming from concussion issues.<\/p>\n

While Kaboly is right that the safety market is often deflated, Brisker\u2019s concussion history certainly affects his value. The Steelers surely would have had to pay more for him otherwise, but that\u2019s part of the all-encompassing player package.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also worth pointing out that the Steelers signed Brisker on a one-year deal. They\u2019re not exactly committing to a long-term future with him, nor vice versa. Many still see safety as a top need<\/a>, particularly in the first round. Kaboly, however, doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is, I don\u2019t know that the value is there for safety at the 21st overall pick\u201d, he said. \u201cAt that point, I\u2019d just do what they did this year: see if you can find a Brisker or somebody like that. I\u2019m not picking safety in the 20s, no\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jaquan Brisker has been an every-down player throughout his career, but right now, it is not obvious he will be with the Steelers. Pittsburgh already has Joey Porter Jr., Jalen Ramsey, Jamel Dean, and DeShon Elliott in the secondary. Presumably, Brisker would slot in as the fifth defensive back behind that group of four. But given the predominance of nickel defense throughout the NFL, he should still play extensively. The only other real option I see is making Elliott the fifth defensive back. Both of them have concerning injury histories, which have undermined their financial value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steelers may not know exactly where and how much Jaquan Brisker will play right now; they\u2019re just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[7,4423,5240,5241,6,520,57,2360,426,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-858866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jaquan-brisker","10":"tag-kaboly-mack","11":"tag-mark-kaboly","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116363424300245243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858866","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=858866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}