The 2024 NFL year got underway on March 13 and since then we have seen the Pittsburgh Steelers make plenty of moves. Those moves have included three different trades, three re-signings of their own unrestricted free agents and five signings of outside unrestricted free agents. After a busy start to the new league year, the Steelers have been at a virtual standstill for the last several days. With things at a crawl right now, I thought this first Sunday of March Madness would be a great time to update how much additional cash the team has spent since the new league year got underway.
As a starting point for this cash spending update, let’s rewind to the way the 2024 roster looked on March 12 and specifically, the top 53 players when it comes to cash. At that time, the Steelers’ top-53 highest paid players in terms of 2024 cash totaled out at $162,754,120. Now remember, cash totals at that time included all base salaries and any roster bonuses due to players. As an example, DT Larry Ogunjobi is due a $5 million base salary in 2024 to go along with a March roster bonus of $4.75 million. That makes his cash total $9.75 million for 2024.
It’s also important to note that two other players who were in that original top 53, WR Diontae Johnson and QB Kenny Pickett, accounted for $10 million and $1.9839 million in cash, respectively, ahead of the new league year getting underway. Both players have since been traded so the Steelers are no longer on the hook for that total amount of 2024 cash, $11.9839 million.
Johnson and Pickett were both effectively replaced in that top-53 list of players by CB Donte Jackson and QB Justin Fields. After arriving via a trade, Jackson had his contract reworked and that resulted in his new cash charge for 2024 being $6 million. As for Fields, he brings to Pittsburgh a 2024 cash charge of $3,233,448. In short, the swapping of Johnson and Pickett for Jackson and Fields netted the Steelers $2,750,452 in cash savings for 2024.
The Steelers have since re-signed three of their own unrestricted free agents in S Miles Killebrew, DT Montravius Adams, and LS Christian Kuntz, and as part of those deals, all three players were given signing bonuses. Those signing bonuses are considered cash expenditures for 2024. In total, those three re-signings account for $7.68 million in new cash being spent for 2024 since the new league year got underway.
The Steelers’ new outside unrestricted free agents who have been signed — QB Russell Wilson, ILB Patrick Queen, P Cameron Johnston, S DeShon Elliott, and WR Van Jefferson — are all obviously new members of the top 53 since the new league year got underway. The projected 2024 cash total for those five players is $23,342,500. I do want to note that we are still awaiting official contract numbers on Jefferson but my projection for him should be close.
Now, while the three re-signings and five outside signings have a combined 2024 cash total of $31,022,500, we do still need to account for displacement happening in that top 53 since the start of the new league year. After all, we previously displaced the players involved in the trades that netted the Steelers $2,750,452 in cash savings for 2024. So, the eight players who were previously in the top 53 and were kicked out of it had 2024 cash totals of $6.84 million. So, the displacement of those eight players results in $24,182,500 in new 2024 cash being spent. When we subtract that netted $2,750,452 in 2024 cash savings from the trades, that gives us a net total of $21,432,048 additional 2024 in total cash being spent by the Steelers since the start of the new league year on March 13.
So, let’s now look at the bigger 2024 cash spending picture for the Steelers. Currently, their top-53 cash spending sits at $184,186,168, which is up from $162,754,120 on March 15. That running total of $184,186,168 is 72.1 percent of the league’s 2024 cap number of $255.4 million.
On March 10, I predicted that the Steelers will ultimately spend 92 percent of the league’s 2024 cap number of $255.4 million in cash, and that equates to roughly $235 million in total. So, as we sit here today, the Steelers should be spending at least $50,813,832 more in cash this offseason. How will they go about doing that?
Well, around $4 million in cash can be expected to be spent on a practice squad in 2024. Additionally, the Steelers’ rookie class of drafted and undrafted players will likely use up roughly another $15.2 million in cash via signing bonuses given. Another $800,000 or so will go toward offseason workout bonuses per CBA rules. Add all of that together and you get roughly $20 million in 2024 cash that is essentially spoken for. That leaves us roughly another $30,813,832 in cash that likely needs to be spent in 2024.
Now, will the Steelers sign Pat Freiermuth to a contract extension at some point during the offseason? I think they will, and if they do, I could see his 2024 cash amount increasing by around $12 million, give or take. If that indeed happens, that whittles down the remaining expected cash spending for 2024 to roughly $18,813,832.
Assuming my projection of $18,813,832 in additional cash spending for 2024 is correct, or at least somewhat close, one would think that most of it, if not all, would go toward adding outside players. Could one of those players wind up being current San Francisco 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk via a trade? Nobody knows for sure if that will ultimately be the case, but he does seem to be a plausible addition just the same. I, like most of you reading this, can’t wait to see if that ultimately comes to fruition. Such a trade, followed by a contract extension, would certainly create another large cash expenditure for 2024. Probably one of more than $20 million.
Regardless of the whole Aiyuk situation, count on more outside free agents to be signed in the coming days or weeks as the math dictates that will be the case. Personally, I predicted that that the Steelers would spend around $40 million this offseason after top-53 displacement on unrestricted free agent signings, re-signings, and outcomes of any trades. As previously mentioned in this post, that running total for those events now sits at nearly $21.5 million, so I am expecting at least another $18.5 million or so to be spent on outsiders.
Let me close this post once again by noting that I am projecting that the Steelers will spend around 92 percent of the league’s 2024 cap number of $255.4 million in cash this year. That’s merely a projection, however, as there are no rules saying that they won’t wind up spending way more or way less than that. This is the first year of the new three-year CBA cash spending cycle and thus that makes these kinds of predictions extremely hard. The only thing we know for a fact right now is that the Steelers have spent a net total of roughly $21,432,048 in total cash since the new year got underway. We also know that more cash will be spent by the Steelers on outsiders and probably at least $18.5 million more.
Thanks to it now being easier than ever to track cash spending versus cap spending annually, it helps us loosely predict how the Steelers will address both via free agency. This is the sort of stuff that has interested me for several years now and hope as I learn more about annual cash and cap spending that I can better dial in my predictions for Steelers fans when it comes to both.
