The Pittsburgh Steelers terminated the contract of S Keanu Neal on Thursday. With him previously residing in the team’s Rule of 51, it’s once again time to update the Steelers’ 2024 salary cap situation with the start of the new league year less than one week away.
Neal was scheduled to earn a base salary of $2.25 million in 2024, and that amount now comes off the books. Neal will now be displaced in the Steelers’ Rule of 51 by CB Cory Trice Jr., who has a base salary of $795,000. After top-51 roster displacement takes place, the Steelers effectively cleared $1.455 million in 2024 salary cap space by terminating Neal’s contract.
Neal’s release does carry a 2024 dead money charge of $460,000, which is the leftover signing bonus proration on his contract. That now means that the Steelers have a 2024 dead money total of $9,999,633.
In real time, the Steelers are now $10,340,846 under the cap when it comes to their Rule of 51 amount. The team, however, has several expenses that it must budget for when it comes to the remainder of the offseason. Those estimated forthcoming charges the team must budget for are itemized in the table below.
On the heels of Neal’s contract termination, it will still be interesting to see how much more salary cap space the team clears by the middle of next week, the start of the 2024 NFL year. The Steelers are expected to do something with WR Allen Robinson II, due to him set to earn $10 million in 2024. Robinson is likely to be asked to take a huge base salary cut in order to remain under contract.
Veteran Steelers CB Patrick Peterson is yet another player who will be interesting to watch this week. Peterson, who is now in the final year of his contract, is currently scheduled to earn $6.85 million in 2024 with $3 million of that due to him in the form of a March 16 roster bonus.
As mentioned several times in previous salary cap-related posts on this site, the Steelers could decide to extend the contract of DT Cameron Heyward at some point during the offseason in order to lower his 2024 salary cap charge of $22,406,250. Additionally, the Steelers have the ability to free up even more 2024 salary cap space this offseason by restructuring the contract of OLB Alex Highsmith.
The Steelers have already made several roster adjustments this offseason with most of those being contract terminations. OT Chukwuma Okorafor, QB Mitch Trubisky, OC Mason Cole and P Pressley Harvin III all had their contracts terminated so far this offseason in addition to Neal.
