Steelers safety Mike Mitchell restructured his contract to help add salary cap space in 2016

You didn't really think the Pittsburgh Steelers would go an entire offseason and preseason without restructuring contracts would you? Absolutely not, but before you start complaining about them constantly kicking the proverbial can down the street, and never picking it up, realize this is pretty common practice for almost every NFL team.

The New England Patriots constantly move Tom Brady's money around to help the team navigate the salary cap, and the Steelers have one of the best in the business with performing such a task with Omar Khan at the helm.

A day after the team restructured Marcus Gilbert's contract, it was discovered they also had restructured safety Mike Mitchell's contract to help clear nearly $2 million in salary cap space.

Another Steelers player had his contract restructured: S Mike Mitchell, dropping his 2016 cap number from $6,763,750 to $4,020,416.

— Ian Whetstone (@IanWhetstone) August 26, 2016

Steelers S Mike Mitchell's base salary of $5M was lowered to the minimum $885,000, with the remaining $4,115,000 converted to signing bonus.

— Ian Whetstone (@IanWhetstone) August 26, 2016

While most fans assume the maneuvers witnessed the past week would represent the team preparing to sign a big name player to a long-term deal, like David DeCastro, it might not always be the case. The team needs to free up salary cap space to be able to manage the cap throughout the regular season. When players get hurt, are added to the roster or possibly released, it all requires money to be moved.

Could they be preparing to sign DeCastro, Le'Veon Bell or a player like Antonio Brown to a long-term contract? Possibly, but they could just be moving money around to help them function throughout the 2016 season too.