The same thing happened with Worilds that happened with Lewis, both players didn't play well until the final year of their rookie contract. The Steelers like to sign their players the year prior to their final year, that's how they get a "discount" by offering some security a year early and with a nice pay increase. The problem is that the Steelers couldn't do that with Lewis or Worilds because neither played particularly well the year prior to their final contract year. Then when they played well in the final year there are 31 other teams willing to enter the bidding war for the player.
Signing players the year before allows the Steelers to negotiate without other teams bidding up the price, negotiating in the contract year (free agency) puts you in the mix with every other team that could use their services and the price gets bid up.
Pappy
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