The Pittsburgh Steelers recently signed one new player and waived one other. With updated contracts on all the recent transactions, it’s time to pass along an official salary cap update for the team. The new player signed was TE MyCole Pruitt and the player recently waived was RB Alfonzo Graham.
Graham didn’t count in the Steelers’ Rule of 51 amount, so his waiving did not impact the team’s salary cap number. Pruitt signed a one-year, veteran benefit contract that includes a 2024 salary cap charge of $1.035 million. His signing effectively used $120,000 of available salary cap space.
With the details of those two transactions accounted for, the Steelers are now officially $12,075,998 under the cap when it comes to their official Rule of 51 amount. However, that amount does not include the 2024 workout bonus placeholder amount of $907,200, which has not officially hit the NFLPA books yet. For now, that $907,200 workout placeholder amount is considered one of several predictable forthcoming offseason costs the Steelers will have.
While the Steelers are now officially $12,075,998 under the cap, as the included table shows below, the team still has roughly $18.3 million in forthcoming offseason cap costs that will need to be absorbed before Week 1 of the 2024 regular season. In short, the Steelers are effectively $6,221,202 over the cap right now when accounting for all forthcoming predicted offseason costs.
With the 2024 NFL Draft now nearly two weeks away, the Steelers still have numerous ways of creating 2024 salary cap space moving forward. As stated previously throughout the offseason, a two-year contract extension for DT Cameron Heyward could free up somewhere around $9.5 million in 2024 salary cap space for the Steelers if no new money is given to him this year as part of that.
In addition to Heyward possibly receiving a contract extension this offseason, the Steelers can also perform a full contract restructuring on the deal OLB Alex Highsmith signed in 2023. Such a contract restructuring would potentially free up an additional $7.206 million in 2024 salary cap space for the team. Should they need to, the Steelers could also do a contract restructuring with S Minkah Fitzpatrick. A full restructuring of Fitzpatrick’s contract would free up as much as $8,916,667 2024 salary cap space for the team.
As part of the final roster trimming process ahead of Week 1 of the 2024 regular season, the Steelers are likely to free up some additional 2024 salary cap space, as all players currently in the Rule of 51 aren’t likely to make the team. The Steelers could sign a few players to contract extensions later in the offseason as well. TE Pat Freiermuth leads that list of candidates. In doing that, however, that would likely require some additional 2024 salary cap space being used.
With it now being late in the compensatory free agent signing period of the offseason, the Steelers should be considered to be in fine shape when it comes to available salary cap space to work with through the 2024 NFL Draft and several weeks beyond that. The team is unlikely to create any additional salary cap space until much later in the offseason as it seems the bulk of its free agency signings have been conducted at this point.
After the recent transactions, the Steelers now have 74 players under contract for 2024. The team will eventually build its offseason roster out to 90 players. Most of those players added moving forward in the offseason will be rookies.
