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Brooke Pryor, ESPN Staff Writer
PITTSBURGH — Mitch Trubisky isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
With a year left on the backup quarterback’s contract, the Pittsburgh Steelers are finalizing a two-year extension with the former No. 2 overall pick, a source confirmed to ESPN.
NFL Network first reported that the Steelers were finalizing the extension with Trubisky.
Earlier Thursday, Steelers general manager Omar Khan had said in an interview with “The Pat McAfee Show” that he was “finishing up an extension” with Trubisky but did not disclose the length of the deal.
“We feel good about our quarterback room, and that was an important piece,” Khan said in the interview. “We’ve got, obviously, Kenny Pickett is our starter. We feel really good about Mitch Trubisky in the role that he’s in. He feels good about it. We’ve added Mason Rudolph. We feel really good about the QB room.”
Trubisky was set to count $10.6 million against the cap for the 2023 season, and an extension offers cap flexibility, while also giving Trubisky security as a top-tier backup. He will make $8 million guaranteed in the first year of the extension, a source told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler. The move also comes a day after the Steelers re-signed Rudolph to a one-year deal after he hit the open market in free agency, keeping the quarterback room from 2022 intact.
Though Trubisky, selected as a 2022 team captain, lost the starting job early last season, he was a valuable resource for the first-round pick Pickett, and he offered the Steelers a solid insurance policy in spot starts and appearances.
Khan was transparent about his desire to retain Trubisky at the NFL combine in February, hinting at an extension then.
“Mitch has been great,” Khan said at the combine. “It’s been great to have him around, and I would look forward to having him around here for a long time. Not only this year but for a long time.”
Signing a two-year, $14 million contract with Pittsburgh on the first day of free agency in 2022, Trubisky, drafted by the Bears in 2017, joined the Steelers looking to jump-start his career after a year as Josh Allen‘s backup in Buffalo. The Steelers drafted Pickett in the first round less than two months after signing Trubisky, but the veteran retained the starting job out of training camp.
The offense, though, struggled to find its footing in the opening games of the season, often lacking explosivity in a conservative game plan. Searching for a spark, the coaching staff inserted Pickett to replace Trubisky as the starter at halftime of the Week 4 loss to the New York Jets. In his first four starts in Pittsburgh, Trubisky threw for 653 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions.
“The fact that they voted me captain means I gotta come in here, put my hand in the pile and lead these guys in any way I can, even if it’s not on the field,” Trubisky told ESPN last year.
After moving to a support role for Pickett, Trubisky got one more start in Week 14 against the Carolina Panthers, completing 17 of 22 attempts for 179 yards in a 24-16 win. Trubisky saw action in two other games after Pickett suffered concussions, first helping the Steelers to a win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 6 as he completed 9 of 12 attempts for 144 yards and a touchdown. Then, in Week 13, he threw three interceptions to one touchdown in a loss to the Baltimore Ravens.
In six seasons in the NFL, Trubisky has completed 64.2% of his pass attempts and thrown 68 touchdown passes to 43 interceptions in 64 games (55 starts).
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