Pittsburgh Steelers free agency 2017: Top 5 targets

The Pittsburgh Steelers are typically a stingy team in free agency. However, they do have cap space this offseason. Will they spend it?

The Steelers are notably a team that likes to draft well and retains their own. It can be shown by the fact that their two biggest free agent signings of the past decade are Mike Mitchell and Ladarius Green.

However, those two signings each came in the past three years. On top of that, the Steelers are in their best salary cap state in years. Who are the players that they will be spending their money on?

5. Lawrence Timmons

In typical Steelers fashion, their first move will be to retain their own. Timmons is 30 now and
has been exposed in coverage in each of the last two seasons. However, he is the first draft pick made by Mike Tomlin and is a core leader of this team. He also is one of the last Steelers left with Super Bowl experience.

Last season, Timmons was one of the highest-paid linebackers in the league. This year, it is safe to say that the Steelers will be looking for a hometown discount when it comes to re-signing him. For Timmons playing his whole career in Pittsburgh, and knowing that he likely has two or three years left in the league, it would be a surprise to see him turn down an offer from Pittsburgh.

The hope would be to get him on a contract similar to that of Paul Posluszny, a two-year, $11 million type of deal. If that is the case the Steelers would welcome him back with open arms, and it is tough to say that Timmons would reject that, or that he would even find a better deal on a better team in the open market. At this point, it is expected that Timmons will be back in Pittsburgh.