CULVER CITY, Calif. -- Ryan Clark enters his 12th season unsure what the future holds for his NFL career.
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The Pittsburgh Steelers safety is coming off another strong season, but his contract is up after 2013 and there are no active negotiations between player and team. Clark wants to finish his career in Pittsburgh, but it's unclear if he remains in the team's long-term plans as he approaches his 34th birthday.
"I've definitely let the team know I want to continue playing there," Clark told Around The League from NFL Network studios. "I'm also very comfortable with what's happened in my career and how long I've been able to play. I'm also actively working on setting things up for when I retire. Seeing what things I like to do and hopefully have those opportunities. I wouldn't necessarily say I'm concerned, but I would like to play. If I don't, I'm pretty happy how it went."
Clark is open to playing elsewhere, but he has no plans to uproot his family with a daughter entering high school. If he can't stay in Pittsburgh, he could target teams in the region. Retirement also sounded like a possibility.
"To bounce around and try to go to all these different places and maybe play for one-year contracts here and there, that's not something I really want to do," he said.
We asked about Ben Roethlisberger, coming off an injury-plagued season and now recovering from knee surgery. Is there internal concern in Pittsburgh that Roethlisberger's durability is in decline?
"No, there isn't. Ben plays a brand of football that puts him at harm's way at times," he said. "I think he's built for it. We also know that's who he is and that's what he has to play for us to be successful. If Ben tried to play like Peyton (Manning) or be Tom (Brady), that's just not who he is. It wouldn't work for us, it wouldn't work for him."
Hear more from Ryan Clark on the latest edition of "The Dave Dameshek Football Program." Follow Dan Hanzus on Twitter @DanHanzus.
