Fu signs contract extension to stay with Steelers through 2003
Running back Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala keeps adding weight to the Steelers' salary cap, but the team doesn't seem to mind.
One week after the Steelers matched the New England Patriots' one-year, $700,000 contract offer to Fuamatu-Ma'afala, they have extended the deal through the 2003 season. Fuamatu-Ma'afala, who could become the No. 1 backup to Jerome Bettis this year, signed an extension Thursday that could pay him $2.7 million over three seasons, with incentives that might push the deal's ultimate value to more than $4 million.
He received a $250,000 signing bonus as part of the contract last week, and an additional $500,000 to sign the new deal. As a result, he will count $867,000 against the cap this year, $355,000 more than the original tender the Steelers offered him last month, but about 50 percent less than what the other backup running back, Richard Huntley, will cost.
It was the Steelers who decided to extend the contract, not Fuamatu-Ma'afala or his agent, indicating that the team expects him to share part of the load with Bettis.
'I didn't expect to do anything this fast,' he said. 'It makes me feel wanted, and I want to work harder,' Fuamatu-Ma'afala said.
Huntley, with a $1.6 million cap value, remains on the roster, but he might have to beat out Fuamatu-Ma'afala to keep his job.
Fuamatu-Ma'afala would have had a better chance to start with the Patriots, who do not have a running back of Bettis' caliber, but he claims to be happy as a backup with the Steelers.
'I was looking for an opportunity to start and play (in New England),' he said. 'Either way, I was going to be a happy guy, if I came back here or I went there.'
He eventually might replace Bettis, but not now.
'There's only one Jerome,' he said.
Fuamatu-Ma'afala said he is completely recovered from the broken left foot that ended his 2000 season after seven games, and he will be at full strength for the three-day minicamp that begins today at the UPMC practice facility on the South Side.
'I've been running, cutting doing everything for two weeks,' he said.
