The Pittsburgh Steelers took David DeCastro with the No. 24 pick in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft, but it may be a while until they get him under contract. Steelers Depot takes a look at some of the picks before DeCastro that has signed and tries to guess what his deal might be. Steelers Depot also compares DeCastro's situation to that of the No. 24 overall pick last year, Cameron Jordan. One issue ahead is the number of guaranteed years in the deal.
That deal included a $4.12 million signing bonus. It figures that DeCastro will receive a deal very close to that of Jordan and it should only have three years guaranteed as well. Until DeCastro is boxed out of a four-year guarantee though by a contract ahead of him, he will likely remain unsigned.
Only having one year under the new CBA complicates things because we don't have a lot of precedent for how these deals should look. The No. 19 overall pick under contract is already signed, so we're about five contracts away from figuring out what DeCastro's contract is going to look like. Unfortunately, there is really no way to know how long that will take.
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