The Pittsburgh Steelers signed cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to his four-year rookie contract on Wednesday. Now that the deal has finally hit the NFLPA side, we can pass along the finer details of it.
As expected with the slotted Porter deal, it totals out at $9,618,348 and includes a $3,995,160 signing bonus. Of that total amount, $8,999,870 (93.6 percent) is guaranteed. The first three years of the contract are guaranteed, along with the signing bonus. As expected, 70 percent of Porter’s year-four base salary in 2026 is guaranteed. that’s exactly $1,443,116 of his $2,061,594 base salary in 2026.
In 2022, Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman Logan Hall, the first pick in the second round of the draft and the 33rd overall, had 81.2 percent of his rookie four-year contract guaranteed. That deal included just 11.4 percent of his year-four base salary being guaranteed.
Porter’s salary cap charges for the four years of his deal are $1,748,790, $2,185,988, $2,623,186, and $3,060,384, respectively. Upon entering the Steelers’ Rule of 51 after signing his rookie contract, Porter used just $808,790 in available 2023 salary cap space.
With the Steelers now having Porter signed, they officially sit $11,392,471 under the cap pending the NFLPA workout placeholder amount of $849,600. That means the team is really $10,542,871 under the cap in real-time.
The Steelers obviously have a lot of future salary cap costs to absorb related to remaining offseason business. Those forthcoming costs are fairly predictive overall, and they revolve around a 52nd and 53rd player (est. $1,500,000), a full 16-player practice squad (est. $4,000,000), a Reserve/Injured list (est. $3,000,000) and an in-season move buffer amount ($9,000,000).
Currently, those fairly predictive forthcoming costs total out at $17.5 million. And when applied to the current real-time salary cap space amount of $10,542,871, the team is essentially $6,957,129 over the cap as of July 29, if we are looking into the future. The team will easily manage that number via final 53-man roster construction and if it needs to, a contract restructuring for outside linebacker T.J. Watt.
