Over the course of the last several weeks Omar Khan has cleared $23,578,750 off of the Pittsburgh Steelers 2013 salary cap with just four contract restructures and one contract termination. Several months ago I laid out the course of action that Khan would take to clear around $20 million of cap space via four restructures. While I didn\’t nail the amount on the head, I did nail the four players he would restructure and the general course of action.
As I do every year, here is a recap of how that was done and what it means to future cap years as a result.
Linebacker Lawrence Timmons was the first to have his contract restructured. He had $4.625 million of his $5.375 base salary that was due him in 2013, along with his $2.5 million roster bonus due, turned into a signing bonus. That $7.125 million was prorated out over four years, starting with this year, at an amount of $1,781,250 per year. The move cleared $5,343,750 million in 2013 cap space.
Next up on the restructure platform was wide receiver Antonio Brown. He had $1.35 million of his 2013 $2 million base salary along with his $2.5 million roster bonus due him turned into a signing bonus. That $3.35 million was prorated out over five years, including 2013, at a year proration cap charge of $770,000. That restructure lowered the 2013 cap charge on Brown by $3.08 million.
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was next up and he had $9 million of his 2013 $11.6 million base salary that he was scheduled to earn turned into a signing bonus via the restructure which produced $3 million in proration over three years including 2013. That cleared $6 million in cap space for 2013.
Last up was linebacker LaMarr Woodley. He had $5.4 million of his $9 million base salary that he was scheduled to earn in 2013 turned into a signing bonus and that cleared $4.05 million in 2013 cap space by doing so. That produced a proration amount of $1.35 million over four years including 2013.
The last move that needed to be made was the contract termination of linebacker James Harrison, who had a base salary of $6.57 million due him and a 2013 cap charge of $10.035 million. The termination of that contract meant that all of the proration from his original signing bonus and restructures needed to be charged off immediately. That dead money charge was $4.93 million and produced a cap savings of $5.105 million after the smoke cleared.
As you can see, those five moves total up to $23,578,750 in 2013 cap dollars being cleared.
So what did all of these restructures do to future years? It added $6,901,250 in proration cap charges to both 2014 and 2015. $3,901,250 in 2016 and $770,000 in 2017.
Now here is something to keep in mind concerning 2014. Harrison was scheduled to count $9.04 million against the cap in that year. The four restructures combined with his contract termination actually resulted in a decrease in 2014 of $2,138,750.
We are not done yet, however, as guard Willie Colon was released with a post June 1st designation earlier this week. The Steelers will not see the $5.5 million cap savings from that release until June 2nd. At that time a $4.3 million dead money charge will be added onto 2014.
If you are scoring at home, those five moves will have cleared $29,078,750 in 2013 cap space and also cleared $5,488,750 in 2014 cap space because of the release of Harrison and Colon, who were combined scheduled to count $16.69 million against the cap. It should be noted that Colon was also scheduled to count $8.15 million against the cap in 2015, and now that number is also erased from the books completely.
Once again, I hope you can see how a pen and the “Math of Khan” worked this off-season. This is the kind of stuff that keeps a bi-polar person with OCD and ADD like myself occupied. It also, however, contributes to severe insomnia.
