The NFLPA updated their team salary cap reports Tuesday morning and they now show the Pittsburgh Steelers as having $3,574,520 in available salary cap space and 76 players under contract. That $1,175,000 increase in cap space tells us that cornerback Cortez Allen was released on Friday without the post June 1 designation.
While the individual cap savings related to Allen amounted to $1.7 million, the team was only able to effectively clear $1.175 million in space after roster displacement took place in the top 51 salaries. Allen was scheduled to earn a $4.4 million base salary in 2016 as part of the four-year, $24.6 million contract extension that he signed with the Steelers just prior to the start of the 2014 regular season.
By not designating Allen as a post June 1 release, the Steelers will incur a dead money charge in 2016 of $4.05 million on their former fourth-round draft pick. Allen, however, will be off of the books completely come the end of the 2016 season. Had the Steelers designated Allen as a post June 1 release, they would have saved $4.4 million in salary cap space after that date had passed but in doing so would have created a dead money charge in 2017 of $2.7 million.
It is rumored that Allen was released just prior to the start of the team’s offseason program because he refused to take a pay cut in 2016. The Citadel product ended the last two seasons on the Steelers Reserve/Injured list due to knee injuries.
