Another day and another $3.08 million has been trimmed off of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2013 salary cap as wide receiver Antonio Brown had his contract restructured on Wednesday. When you couple that savings with the $5,343,750 million created on Tuesday by the contract restructure of linebacker Lawrence Timmons, you will see that $8,423,750 million has been trimmed in the last two days.
As of Wednesday evening the Steelers Rule of 51 number currently sits right around $127,478,706 million. If you believe the Tuesday report from Pro Football Talk that stated the 2013 salary cap number could be $123 million, or higher, this puts the Steelers roughly $3,078,706 over a $123 million cap number when you factor in the $1.4 million cap credit they have at their disposal.
As I pointed out on Tuesday, there is still meat left on the Steelers salary cap bone as they will need $4,815,000 million after Rule of 51 displacement to tender their projected five restricted free agents and two exclusive rights free agents. Essentially they still need to trim another $7,893,706 million in cap space to allow for just that.
Remember, the $7,893,706 million only gets the Steelers to an even number of $123 million and there is still the rookie draft class that needs to be accommodated as well as any of their own, or outside, free agents that they wish to sign.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and linebacker LaMarr Woodley are expected to have their contracts restructured as well and those reports should be along by the end of the week. Fully restructuring Woodley should create roughly another $6,187,500 million in cap space, while a full restructure of Roethlisberger should free up roughly another $7 million or so. Factoring in another $13,187,500 worth of cap space that will be created with those two restructures, the Steelers will be approximately $5,293,794 under the cap with four players restructured and seven free agents tendered (5 restricted and 2 exclusive rights).
The Steelers rookie draft pool is estimated to be roughly $4.7 million, so you can clearly see that even more money will be needed to accommodate that, extensions, free agent signings, and enough of a buffer to get them through the 2013 season.
Unless more players are restructured, or agree to have their 2013 salaries reduced, the additional money needed to accommodate the remaining business at hand will have to come in the form of a termination or two between now and the draft.
I will keep you updated with the latest numbers after the next set of restructures are done.
