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The Pittsburgh Steelers welcomed Martavis Bryant back to the fold in 2017 after a year suspension in 2016, and although he didn’t set the world on fire he did enough to earn some extra cash.
According to Ian Whetstone, who consults for scout.com, and the NFLPA records, Bryant got a bump in salary based on how much he played last season.
Steelers WR Martavis Bryant's salary now reflects in NFLPA records that he has earned the Proven Performance Escalator (available in contracts of all rookies drafted after round 2), bumping his pay from $705,000 to $1,907,000. This eats an addition $1.202 million in cap space.
— Ian Whetstone (@IanWhetstone) March 15, 2018
Great news for the Steelers to have Bryant back on the field, but bad news for the Steelers as it will cut into the salary cap space they created when the team released Mike Mitchell, William Gay and Robert Golden.
After this trio of cuts, the Steelers created roughly $7 million dollars in space, but with the $1.202 million dollar pay out to Bryant the team’s cap space has shrunken even more. So, as the team barely got salary cap compliant before the new league year, this news doesn’t help their current situation.
The plain and simple truth here is if the Steelers want to add any players via free agency they will have to make other moves to create more space. Will they cut more players? Continue re-structuring deals? At this point that is anyone’s guess.
Stay tuned to BTSC for the latest news on the Steelers, and all things black-and-gold.