A month after Chris Johnson said he couldn’t play for his $550,000 base salary, the Titans gave him a raise. Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley is also scheduled to make a $550,000 base salary this season, and although he’s not saying he can’t play for that, he does think the Steelers aren’t treating him as well as they could.
“It’s kind of jacked up,” Woodley told Michael Silver of Yahoo. “Everything I’ve ever done for the Steelers, on and off the field, has been positive. Sometimes you don’t get the same thing back in return.”
Woodley knows that the “30 percent rule” limits how big a raise the Steelers can give him, at least as long as there’s no new Collective Bargaining Agreement, but he tells Silver that he’s frustrated the Steelers simply expect him to play out his contract.
“I’m not going to lie - I was a little disappointed that they didn’t offer anything at all,” Woodley said. “I felt that was a little weird. I guess they decided they’re going to sit back and wait for the CBA and all that to play out.
“You look around the league and you see different teams getting stuff done with their players in similar situations, and you think, ‘What, the Steelers don’t care about me?’ Stuff like that goes through your mind.”
Woodley noted that his fellow 2007 second-rounder Kevin Kolb got a big raise from the Eagles, and Woodley is correct to think that if the Steelers wanted to, they could give him a big raise, too. But the Steelers don’t want to, and that means Woodley will play this season for $550,000.