I’ve dedicated a few posts today about the possibility of Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joe Haden being a salary cap causality and in all of them I have stated that I do not believe that will ultimately happen. As it turns out, Haden doesn’t think he’ll be on the street looking for work in the next two weeks either.
“I predict they don’t,” Haden tweeted on Wednesday in response to a tweeted story about NFL insider John Clayton saying during a radio interview earlier in the day that the veteran cornerback might be cut in the next two weeks.
I predict they don’t. https://t.co/pZ9QOgXf71
— Joe Haden (@joehaden23) March 4, 2021
So, there you go. I have contended all along that Haden’s 2021 salary of $7 million is what should really be focused on and not his scheduled salary cap charge of $15.575 million. That cap charge is that high due to the Steelers restructuring his contract a year ago. In short, it’s not Haden’s fault his cap number is more than twice what he’s scheduled to earn in 2021. While 31 years of age, Haden is worth every penny of the $7 million he’s scheduled to make in 2021.
On top of that, the Steelers would only free up $6.34 million in cap space by cutting Haden loose. They would also be on the search for a new staring cornerback should they cut Haden and there’s no guarantee they would be able to re-sign soon-to-be unrestricted free agent cornerback Cameron Sutton to be that replacement.
Haden sounds pretty confident that his job is safe these next few weeks and I believe him. You should as well.
The Steelers waited until March 16 last year to make their cap casualty cuts and that list of players included inside linebacker Mark Barron, outside linebacker Anthony Chickillo and wide receiver Johnny Holton. The writing was long on the wall that those players weren’t likely to make it to the start of the 2020 league year last March and they ultimately didn’t.
With Haden seemingly safe at this point, that leaves inside linebacker Vince Williams as the only real candidate to be cut in the next two weeks. Maybe he’ll chime in on Twitter in the next few days to address that possibility the way Haden did on Wednesday.
