Big Ben, Steelers reach agreement
PITTSBURGH — Ben
Roethlisberger is returning for an 18th season with the Pittsburgh Steelers and is taking a pay cut to do it.
The team and the twotime Super Bowl winner announced on Thursday they have agreed on a new contract that assures the 39-year-old will be back in 2021.
Financial details were not immediately available, though the Steelers made no secret of the need for Roethlisberger to take a pay cut to ease some of the burden of his NFL-high $41.25-million salary-cap hit scheduled for 2021.
NFL Network, citing anonymous sources, said Roethlisberger’s new deal will essentially pay him $14 million this season and adds four voidable years to spread out the dead money.
In other pro football news:
• The New Orleans Saints have cut punter Thomas Morstead, who was a rookie when the franchise won its only Super Bowl and then played 11 more seasons.
“I’m obviously sad to be moving on from the team. The season I had wasn’t to the normal standard that I had set; there are a variety of reasons for that,” Morstead said Thursday, adding that he struggled with back problems during the previous offseason.
The Saints selected the 6-foot-5, 235-pound Morstead out of SMU in the fifth round of the 2009 NFL draft. In 2012, he was selected for to the Pro Bowl and named second-team All-Pro.
Morstead, a Pearland High graduate, appeared in 190 career regular-season games for New Orleans, punting 692 times for 32,190 yards, with a career gross average of 46.5 yards and net average of 41.6 yards.