The Steelers did not exercise the fifth-year option on inside linebacker Devin Bush’s rookie contract, paving the way for Bush to become an unrestricted free agent next year.
By declining the option the Steelers will not have to pay Bush $10.9 million for the 2023 season. That’s of small consolation to the Steelers, however. They would have gladly paid that money if Bush had played well.
Outgoing Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert traded his 2019 first-round pick and second-round pick and a 2020 third-round pick to move up 10 spots to select Bush in the 2019 draft.
Bush put up his best numbers as a rookie when he posted 109 tackles, intercepted two passes and had four fumble recoveries. In the fifth game of the 2020 season, Bush sustained a season-ending knee injury against the Browns.
Bush returned last season, but he didn’t play well. He had 70 tackles and one forced fumble in 14 starts, and found himself rotating with Robert Spillane and Joe Schobert in the dime defense late in the season.
Bush is penciled in as a starter next to Myles Jack in the middle of the defense, but the only way he’ll play for the Steelers in 2023 is if they come terms with him after he explores free agency.
That happened this year when safety Terrell Edmunds, the team’s first-round pick in 2018, did not sign elsewhere in free agency. Last week Edmunds re-signed with the Steelers for $2.5 million on a one-year deal.
It’s the third time in the past four years the Steelers declined the fifth-year option on one of their former first-round picks. In addition to Edmunds, the Steelers also did not exercise the option on 2016 first-round pick Artie Burns. Overall, since the inception of the 2011 collective bargaining agreement, the Steelers have picked up the option on five of their past nine first-round picks. The Steelers did pick up option on Minkah Fitzpatrick’s rookie contract last year, but he came to the Steelers in a trade after being a first-round pick of the Dolphins in 2018, the same year the Steelers drafted Edmunds.
The Steelers also declined the option on 2013 first-round pick Jarvis Jones. They picked up the option for Cam Heyward, David DeCastro, Ryan Shazier, Bud Dupree and T.J. Watt.
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