In a Thursday post on the National Football Post by Joel Corry, he goes over 10 players that are expected to have their contracts restructured at some point during the offseason and it shouldn’t be surprising that Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown made the list.
“The Steelers have $140.1 million in 2014 cap obligations with only $1.35 million of unused 2013 cap room that can be carried over to the 2014 league year,” starts Corry, a former sports agent who helped found Premier Sports & Entertainment. $3,937,500 of cap space will be freed up if Brown drops his $6 million base salary to $750,000 where the rest is converted into a signing bonus. Brown restructured his contract last year by turning $3.85 million of his $4.5 million base salary into a signing bonus.”
If you have bee reading this site for a while, none of this should be a surprise to you because I have been calling for it to happen for some time. By restructuring Brown’s contract again and releasing tackle Levi Brown over the course of the next few weeks, the Steelers should be pretty close to being cap compliant if the Thursday news that the 2014 cap number will come in at around $130 million stands up.
Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert was asked Thursday at the 2014 NFL Scouting Combine to comment on the rumored $130 million number.
“I think that is a welcomed rumor,” said Colbert with a smile, according to steelers.com. “We haven’t gotten any information on the cap, and I don’t anticipate us getting it until really close to March 11. So whether it goes up or not, we have to prepare for the worst and see where it lands.
“You don’t want to have a false hope that it’s going to be ($130 million) and then it’s not. So, we still have to prepare off what we were working with last year, and then maybe add to it. Again, those numbers (like $130 million) start floating around, but they haven’t been substantiated.”
Brown might not be the only Steelers player to have his contract restructured as there’s a possibility that linebacker Lawrence Timmons could have his redone again as well. As I have pointed out several times in previous cap related posts, restructuring Timmons can clear another $3.93 million in cap space, should the Steelers decide to go that route. If the $130 million projected cap number stands up, however, Timmons contract might could be left alone depending on the up coming contract terminations and extensions.
