The Pittsburgh Steelers surprisingly traded wide receiver Martavis Bryant to the Oakland Raiders Thursday night during the first-round of the 2018 NFL Draft and not only did they receive a third-round selection in return for him, they also cleared some salary cap space in the process.
Bryant, thanks to him being the recipient of a Proven Performance Escalator earlier this offseason, was scheduled to earn $1.907 million from the Steelers in 2018, the final year of his contract. That was also his scheduled salary cap charge in 2018 as there was no prorated bonuses in addition to that. After Bryant’s displacement in the Steelers top-51 salaries, the team cleared $1.352 million in 2018 salary cap space as a result of trading him to the Raiders.
Entering Thursday, the Steelers had $1,991,880 in available salary cap space, according to the NFLPA, and with the trading of Bryant Thursday night, they should now have $3,343,880 in available space.
The Steelers did draft a player Thursday night in former Virginia Tech safety Terrell Edmunds, but until he signs his first contract, his accounted for rookie base salary will be outside the team’s top 51 and thus will not initially impact the available space amount until he signs his name on the dotted line.
