The Pittsburgh Steelers recently signed four new players and now that the contracts of those additions have been filed, it’s time to pass along an official salary cap update for the team. Those four new players signed to the team were KR/RB Cordarrelle Patterson, WR Quez Watkins, DL Dean Lowry, and QB Kyle Allen.
Patterson and Lowry both signed two-year contracts while Watkins and Allen each inked to one-year deals. The Watkins and Allen deals were both veteran benefit contracts with 2024 salary cap charges of $1.1525 million. Patterson’s 2024 salary cap charge is $2.25 million while Lowry’s comes in at $1.875 million. In summation, the four new players required just $2.77 million in total available 2024 salary cap space being used.
With the details of those four contracts accounted for, the Steelers are now officially $12,195,998 under the cap when it comes to their official Rule of 51 amount. That amount, however, does not include the 2024 workout bonus placeholder amount of $907,200, which has not officially hit the books yet. For now, that $907,200 placeholder amount is considered a predictable forthcoming offseason cost the Steelers will have. One of several the team will have this offseason, by the way.
While the Steelers are now officially $12,195,998 under the cap, as the 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 $6,101,202 over the cap right now when accounting for all forthcoming predicted offseason costs.
The Steelers obviously have numerous ways of creating 2024 salary cap space moving forward. For example, a two-year contract extension for DT Cameron Heyward should 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 a possible contract extension for Heyward, the Steelers can perform a full contract restructuring on the deal that OLB Alex Highsmith signed last summer. Such a restructuring would potentially free up an additional $7.206 million in 2024 salary cap space. The Steelers could also do a contract restructuring with S Minkah Fitzpatrick should the need arise. A full restructuring of Fitzpatrick’s contract would free up as much $8,916,667 more 2024 salary cap space.
Much later in the offseason, the Steelers’ final roster cutdown to 53 active players is 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 Week 1 team. The team could sign a few players to contract extensions later in the offseason as well. In doing that, however, that would likely require some additional 2024 salary cap space being used. TE Pat Freiermuth is the lead candidate to receive a contract extension later in the offseason.
With this now being the month of April, the Steelers should be considered to be in fine shape when it comes to available salary cap space to work with through the remainder of the compensatory free agent signing period of the offseason, which effectively runs through the first Monday after the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Steelers now have 74 players under contract for 2024. They will eventually build their offseason roster out to 90 players. Most of those players added moving forward will be rookies.
