Report Says Steelers Expected to Keep Both Clark and Hampton

On the heels of the prior post about Casey Hampton, the following about keeping the big man AND Ryan Clark was on NFL.com today. Basically spells out that the club is expected to keep BOTH players around:

The Pittsburgh Steelers have made retaining DT Casey Hampton and S Ryan Clark an offseason priority and neither player is expected to hit the open market, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. The Steelers began exploratory talks with Clark before the season, and it would be very surprising if they did not come to a deal in the coming weeks. Hampton’s weight issues have given the team concern at times, but he again was an anchor on defense in 2009, given Hampton’s age, he will be playing his 10th season in 2010 and the possibility the sides cannot agree on a long-term deal, the team could always end up using a franchise designation on him as well.

I won’t bore you about Hampton, as again, they will find a way to keep him around. That’s the just of what we have been talking about for about the past few weeks. As for Clark, he’s a great team player and good locker room teammate, but based on the overall nightmare of the secondary a season ago, I kind of thought they might move on with that spot, but we shall see.