The Pittsburgh Steelers traded for veteran kicker Josh Scobee Monday morning and while the veteran comes with a scheduled $3.425 million base salary, the team is reportedly restructuring that in some form or fashion, according to Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Josh Scobee is restructuring his contract. The Steelers are not signing him for $3.4 million that he made in Jacksonville.
— Ray Fittipaldo (@rayfitt1) August 31, 2015
Being as Scobee is unlikely to take a pay cut this year (notice I said unlikely), that means the Steelers are likely signing him to an extension of some sorts in an effort to lower his 2015 cap charge.
Being as the minimum that Scobee can earn in 2015 is $970,000, his cap charge this season could be as low as $1,788.333, if they extended his contract by two years and turned $2.455 million of his 2015 base salary into a signing bonus. If only extended one year, and assuming the same parameters apply, his cap charge in 2015 would be $2.1975 million.
Above is a maximum standard restructure based on either one or two years being added as part of an extension. It includes no new money other than future base salaries.
Now, the above is only speculation on my part based on typical restructures. Also, there’s no telling what his future salaries would be, but one would think they won’t be guaranteed yet high enough to make it worth it for him to restructure.
Adding more years on to Scobee’s contract would of course result in the Steelers having both he and Shaun Suisham signed to deals past 2015. Suisham, who is currently under contract through the 2018 season, is scheduled to earn $2,400,000 in 2016. However, the team could cut him after June 1st of 2016 and that would result in a $570,000 dead money hit with an additional $1.4 million in dead money rolling over into 2017.
Basically, it looks as if the Steelers are setting themselves up for a kicker battle next year. Suisham is currently on injured reserve after tearing his left ACL in the preseason opener a few weeks ago.
As soon as the restructure parameters for Scobee are made public, I will pass them along to you.
