Emmanuel Sanders is remaining with the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the team has reportedly matched the $2.5 million offer sheet the New England Patriots extended to the receiver earlier in the week. There were rumors prior last week that the Patriots were interested in extending an offer sheet to Sanders, but the Steelers didn’t take long to match the offer and retain their No. 1 target for Ben Roethlisberger.
Pittsburgh matched offer sheet for WR Emmanuel Sanders.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 14, 2013
One of the people who spoke out in favor of bringing back Sanders was Roethlisberger, and it may have been his lobbying that helped the Steelers decide what to do. After losing Mike Wallace to the Miami Dolphins in free agency, the Steelers quickly realized that they don’t have as many targets as they would like, and losing Sanders to an AFC rival would have likely been fatal.
But Sanders is staying, and according to Albert Greer of NFL Network, the Steelers may now be open to extending Sanders the way some think they should have Wallace.
Steelers are open to extending Sanders now, having passed on NE's 3rd-rounder, though the cap situation will dictate how far they can go ...
— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) April 14, 2013
As Greer states, the cap situation with the Steelers is complicated and many believe that Roethlisberger should take an actual pay cut if he wants to keep his targets rather than simply restructure his deal which gave the Steelers little relief. But at least Pittsburgh avoided a situation where they lost another major target, as being tight in cap space is one thing, not having a fully functional offense is a completely different monster.