Nick Herbig – The Steelers’ Best-Kept Secret Who Won’t Stay Quiet Much Longer
The Kid from Kauai Who Started for Wisconsin as a Freshman
Nicholas Herbig was born November 21, 2001, on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. He’s 6-foot-2, weighs 240 pounds, wears number 51, and plays outside linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That’s the baseline. The more interesting part is how he got there.
His older brother Nate, a guard who now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, moved from Kauai to Oahu before his junior year of high school specifically to attend Saint Louis School – a football factory that produced Marcus Mariota and Tua Tagovailoa, among many others. After watching how that environment sharpened Nate, their parents sent Nick there too. He started as a freshman, helped the team win four consecutive Open Division state championships, earned Hawaii’s Open Division Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 2019, and left with two All-State selections and an invitation to the Polynesian Bowl.
Four-star recruit, eighth-ranked outside linebacker in the 2020 class per 247Sports. He had offers from Oklahoma, USC, Stanford, Tennessee, UCLA. Chose Wisconsin. When people questioned that choice – why go 4,000 miles from Hawaii to Madison – he kept saying it just felt different when he visited. The guys in the locker room, the culture, the tradition. What probably didn’t hurt: his older brother had played at Stanford, so Nick had seen that environment up close and still wanted something different.
Three Years at Wisconsin, Leaving as One of the Best Edge Rushers in the Country
He started all seven games in his true freshman year, 2020. Twenty-six tackles, one sack. Not eye-popping, but rare for a freshman OLB at a program that has historically stacked that position with excellent players.
2021: 61 tackles, nine sacks. A real jump. 2022: his final year, and the one that made NFL scouts pay attention – 47 tackles, 11 sacks (tied for sixth in the entire FBS), 15.5 tackles for loss, two forced fumbles. First-team All-Big Ten consensus, third-team AP All-American. He left Wisconsin with 21 career sacks and 137 total tackles across three seasons, declared for the 2023 draft after serving as a team captain, and wrote a public message to Badger Nation thanking them for accepting a kid who came over 4,000 miles away.
His OLB coach Bobby April III described him before his freshman year started: “He is a violent, ferocious football player who will do anything to be successful.” Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard said Herbig arrived “ahead of the curve” from a movement and responsibility standpoint because of how much football he’d absorbed at Saint Louis School. Neither description turned out to be wrong.
The 2023 NFL Draft and a Coincidence Worth Noting
Pittsburgh selected him 132nd overall, fourth round, 2023. Standard rookie deal: four years, $4,512,920, with $672,920 in signing bonus and guaranteed money. Average annual value of $1,128,230. That number becomes important later.
The Steelers had, just weeks before the draft, signed Nate Herbig in free agency on March 16, 2023 – a two-year, $8 million deal. So both brothers landed on the same NFL roster at the same time. GM Omar Khan’s first full draft class in Pittsburgh is now widely considered one of the better ones in recent franchise history; Nick Herbig is part of why.
At the combine, Herbig ran the 40 in 4.65 seconds, posted a 34-inch vertical, 25 bench press reps, and a 9-foot-6 broad jump. For an edge rusher at 240 pounds, those are legitimate athletic numbers, not just serviceable ones.
Rookie Season, Year Two, and Then 2025
Rookie year: 17 games, three sacks, 27 total tackles (19 solo), two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery. He made his first professional sack on October 22, 2023, bringing down Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams. The Steelers went 10-7, made the playoffs, and lost to Buffalo in the Wild Card round 31-17. Herbig played 20 defensive snaps and 19 special teams snaps in that game.
2024 was messier. He missed four games with a hamstring injury but posted 5.5 sacks, 22 tackles, 11 quarterback hits, and four forced fumbles in 13 games. On November 17, 2024, he forced a fumble on Derrick Henry – the first time Henry had fumbled in 538 career touches. He made his first NFL start in Week 4 at Indianapolis. The snap counts were inconsistent throughout; in fewer than half the games he played did he log more than 50 percent of Pittsburgh’s defensive snaps.
Then 2025. Seven-point-five sacks, 30 tackles, one interception, three forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, and a touchdown in 15 regular-season appearances. Career-best across every meaningful category. PFF graded him at 86.7 overall – seventh among 115 qualified edge defenders. His pass-rush grade of 87.1 was eighth in the league. He generated 47 total pressures: eight sacks, 26 hurries, 13 hits. And he did all of that while taking just 53 percent of the team’s defensive snaps.
Career through 2025: 16 sacks, 77 tackles, nine forced fumbles, four fumble recoveries, one interception. Every single season has been better than the one before it. That’s not a trend you can dismiss.
What Playing Behind Watt and Highsmith Actually Means
The Steelers’ outside linebacker situation is genuinely unusual in the NFL. T.J. Watt is one of the best pass rushers in the league and earns accordingly. Alex Highsmith signed an extension worth $17 million per year after posting 14.5 sacks in 2022. Together they consume over $40 million in cap space annually. Herbig has been the third man in that rotation, which explains the limited snap counts – Pittsburgh manages him carefully rather than burning him out in a role where two elite starters already exist.
When Highsmith missed time early in 2025 with an ankle injury, Herbig slid into a more prominent role alongside Watt, and the results were immediately obvious. In Week 4, at Croke Park in Dublin against the Minnesota Vikings, he logged a career-high 66 defensive snaps, recorded 1.5 sacks on Carson Wentz, and posted three quarterback hits. The Steelers won 24-21. The week before, against New England, he had four pressures and a sack on Drake Maye.
His agent Joe DiBenedetto said on a recent podcast with former NFL defensive lineman Breiden Fehoko: “I fully believe if Nick was starting full-time in this league, he would be one of the top five edge rushers in football.” That’s an agent talking, so factor in the motivation. But the underlying math – seventh in PFF grade while playing 53 percent of snaps – doesn’t push back against the claim as hard as you might expect.
The Contract Question That’s Hanging Over This Offseason
He’s in the final year of his rookie deal. After a Proven Performance Escalator raise, he earns $3.674 million in 2026, carrying a cap hit of $3,842,230. That APY of $1,128,230 is what makes this genuinely strange – he has 16 career sacks, a top-10 PFF pass-rush grade, and he makes less per year than a mid-level backup on most rosters.
For comparison: Boye Mafe, who hit free agency after the 2024 season, signed a three-year, $60 million deal with the Cincinnati Bengals – roughly $20 million annually. Uchenna Nwosu’s market was similar. Edge rushers with Herbig’s profile don’t stay cheap.
Spotrac’s market value estimate for Herbig, adjusted for comparable contracts, comes in around $16.5 million per year. Sports Illustrated’s reporting on the situation has suggested a four-year extension at approximately $16 million annually is the likely outcome if both sides reach a deal before the 2026 season. Steelers Depot’s Dave Bryan has argued that Herbig would be better off playing out 2026 on his current deal and hitting unrestricted free agency in March 2027, when he’d be 25 years old – and potentially the top edge rusher available.
The Steelers want to keep him. Omar Khan has publicly downplayed trade speculation that circulated before the 2026 draft. Pittsburgh recognizes he’s a priority alongside cornerback Joey Porter Jr., tight end Darnell Washington, and defensive tackle Keeanu Benton – all 2023 draft picks in similar extension situations. The question is who blinks first on the number.
With Highsmith under contract through 2027 at a $21.1 million cap hit, the Steelers could theoretically absorb a Herbig extension without blowing up their structure. What’s harder to picture is paying Watt, Highsmith, and a newly extended Herbig simultaneously while also addressing other roster needs. One of the more creative scenarios floating around Steelers circles involves a shorter bridge deal – two or three years – that expires around when Highsmith’s contract ends, setting Herbig up for a massive second contract at 26. Whether Herbig’s camp would accept that framing is another matter entirely.
What the Stats Don’t Fully Capture
What gets me about Herbig’s situation is that the snap-count argument cuts both ways. Pittsburgh limits him to protect the pass rush rotation, and those limited snaps help keep his production rate absurdly high – but they also cap his raw totals in a way that makes it harder to make the case for top-dollar money. He hasn’t posted 10 sacks in a season. He hasn’t started 16 games. Both facts will come up in contract negotiations.
On the other hand: he forced the only fumble Derrick Henry had in 538 consecutive touches. He flew to Dublin, played 66 snaps against a fully healthy offensive line, and was still making plays in the fourth quarter. His PFF pass-rush grade in 2025 was higher than most edge rushers who made the Pro Bowl that year. The production is real. The snap limits are a team decision, not a limitation on his ability.
He started at Saint Louis School as a freshman. He started at Wisconsin as a true freshman. He was immediate everywhere he went. At 24, he’s three seasons into an NFL career where the trajectory has gone one direction. The Steelers’ coaching staff knows what they have. The only unresolved detail – and it matters – is what they’re willing to pay for it.
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