It should come as no surprise to you that Mike Garafolo of USA Today is reporting on Friday that that Pittsburgh Steelers are “on the verge” of releasing outside linebacker James Harrison.
Garafolo reports that the two sides, which includes Harrison\’s agent Bill Parise, have been speaking regularly and talked again on Friday. According to a source of Garafolo\’s, there\’s still been no progress in getting Harrison to take a cut to his $6.57 million base salary that he is scheduled to earn in 2013.
Parise has been trying to get the Steelers to restructure Harrison\’s contract instead, but doing that would push off even more potential dead money into 2014. The Steelers would like Harrison to stay, but it is obvious that he will need to take a pay cut of around $3 million or more in order for that to happen.
The new league year starts on Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. eastern time and the Steelers still need to tender any restricted free agents that they wish to retain prior to that. The situation with Harrison has now come to a head and something could happen as soon as this evening.
