Now that a new CBA has been approved by the players as of late Saturday night, we quickly learned what the NFL salary cap number per team will be for the 2020 season.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, teams have been informed that the salary cap number per team will be $198.2 million with the overall player costs per team being $242.9 million, an amount that provides for player benefits and performance based pay pool amounts.
In short, the 2020 salary cap number will be $198.2 million, which is a little less than the widely speculated $200 million number. In case you’re curious, the Steelers are currently over the $198.2 million by just a little bit at the time of this post and that doesn’t account for minimum salaries increasing as part of the new CBA being approved.
With the official salary cap number and a new CBA now being in place, the Steelers can quickly begin the process of getting themselves under the cap and possibly even placing the franchise tag on outside linebacker Bud Dupree. The Steelers have also yet to announce the players they will possibly restricted tender such as cornerback Mike Hilton, tackle Matt Feiler and tackle Zach Banner.
The Steelers will surely be announcing a few contract terminations in the very near future. Additionally, you can probably expect a few contract restructures to take place in the very near future to help the team clear salary cap space. The new CBA will help facilitate the Steelers in that area thanks to the 30 percent rule going away.
We’ll find out very soon if the 2020 NFL league year will still start on Wednesday, March 18. If it does, that’s when the Steelers will need to be salary cap compliant. The franchise/transition tag deadline is also still scheduled for Monday at 11:59 a.m. EST so we should know the Steelers decision on Dupree by then. The new expected franchise tag amount for Dupree based on the official salary cap number is $15.829 million, according to former NFL agent Joel Corry of CBS Sports.
