Pittsburgh Steelers officially 24th in the NFL when it comes to remaining salary cap space

There are teams that spend in the NFL, and those that save. This truth has been a constant dating back to the infancy of the Salary Cap, and remains true in 2019. Every year there are teams who spend right up to the salary cap, and those who leave themselves with tons of cap space left.

Some say one way is better, while others argue the opposite.

Either way, the Pittsburgh Steelers are almost always one of the teams who spend up to the cap every year. Kevin Colbert and Omar Khan are masters at manipulating money to give the team enough cap space to bring in free agents, and also some last-minute moves if necessary.

In 2019, the Steelers were right up to the cap, thanks to the dead money cap charge due to trading Antonio Brown to the Oakland Raiders, but were able to squeeze out some cap space with two moves.

First, the team restructured Stephon Tuitt’s contract, freeing up almost $4 million. Next, the team recently gave Joe Haden a new extension, converting a portion of his 2019 cap hit to a signing bonus, thus creating more space.

With those two moves, the Steelers officially have $6,278,872 remaining in terms of 2019 salary cap space. This has the 24th overall, courtesy of ESPN’s Field Yates:

The original thought was the Steelers would free up this space to bring in a player at a position of need, like tight end or safety, but the team is heading into their Week 1 game vs. the New England Patriots without making any last second transactions.

It isn’t as if they didn’t try, though. The team put in a waiver claim for TE Rickey Seals-Jones, but were not awarded him as he was awarded to the Cleveland Browns. So, what will happen to this money? The team can sit on the money in case they have to make a move due to injury, but otherwise will likely roll the near $7 million dollars over to the 2020 salary cap.

In 2020 the Steelers’ overall cap numbers should change dramatically with Brown’s dead money off the books, but other players’ cap hits will increase making the team have to make some tough decisions with players like Javon Hargrave, Sean Davis, Bud Dupree and Artie Burns, among others.

Stay tuned to BTSC for the latest news and notes surrounding the team as they prepare for the Patriots in Week 1 of the regular season on Sunday Night Football.