The Pittsburgh Steelers officially signed QB Aaron Rodgers to a one-year contract on Saturday and now that the finer details related to that deal have been reported, I can now update the team’s 2025 salary cap situation as of Monday night.
First, it is important to understand that while Rodgers can earn up to $19.5 million in 2025, his cap charge is set to be just $14.15 million. That’s because only $500,000 of the extra $5.85 million that he can possibly earn in incentives is considered likely to be earned.
With Rodgers’ contract now filed, the Steelers are currently $19,097,294 under the cap with their Rule of 51 as of Monday night. While the Steelers now have TE Donald Parham Jr. on the Reserve/Injured list with a split salary charge of $540,000, that amount won’t officially go against the salary cap until the removal of the Rule of 51 at the start of the 2025 regular season.
While $19,097,294 is a lot of salary cap space for the Steelers to still work with, several forthcoming costs, most of which are fairly predictable, must be afforded closer to the start of the regular season. Those forthcoming costs include a full practice squad, a 52nd and 53rd player, injury settlements, offseason workout bonuses, and extra buffer cap space to use for the regular season. Currently, those predicted forthcoming cap costs that will ultimately need to be absorbed total out at around $13,657,200.
The Steelers will more than likely sign OLB T.J. Watt to a contract extension later this offseason. Should that ultimately happen, it’s a good bet that Watt’s current 2025 cap charge of $30,418,695 will decrease by around $8-$9 million.
It’s not unthinkable that the Steelers might give K Chris Boswell a $3 million or so cash raise this summer as well. Should that happen, the Steelers should easily be able to afford his cap charge going up as a result of such a raise. Additionally, it’s plausible that the Steelers ultimately sign S DeShon Elliott to a contract extension this summer. The result of such an extension could result in Elliott’s 2025 cap charge of $3.75 million increasing slightly.
As things stand right now, it does not appear as though the Steelers will need to do any contract restructurings this summer. Should that prediction wind up being incorrect, TE Pat Freiermuth would likely be the first player they would restructure. I highly doubt that will be needed, however.
Currently, the Steelers 2025 cash spending for their top 53, plus cash payments outside of that, and a future practice squad, currently sits right around $257 million. I expect the team to spend around $287 million in cash in 2025, so that leaves a deficit of around $30 million, give or take. A Watt extension could possibly eat up around $20 million of that cash spending deficit. A Boswell raise could eat up another $3 million or so in 2025 cash. That still leaves roughly another $7 million or so the team could spend this summer.
In closing, be mindful that both cap space and cash spending are mentioned in this post and those are two different things.
