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Steelers Salary Cap Management

M

maowv

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How can this team never have any money to keep our better free agents or outside free agents? Year after year, we hear the same story, have to restructure a dozen contracts to become cap compliant, can't retain this guy, can't retain that guy. I get the math but Tampa Bay just brought in a bunch of talent that propelled a good team up to Super Bowl Champ status and they still are much better situated with their salary cap math.

SportTrac isn't showing a bunch of dead money from the past, some but that's not the major problem. Pouncey leaving saved $8M, Villavueva will free up another $8M or so, Dupree frees up $15M from the franchise tag of last year, and still we have no money.

Venting. Frustating. Watching Bud and JuJu just walk away in the same year is bad asset management. Doesn't seem like other teams are letting core players walk in their prime. I get it with Villanueva, he had a bad year and is on the wrong side of 30. Same with Pouncey. But this team has holes to fill and no money to go shopping.

Vent over. Concerned that 2021 is going to be a painful season, and 2022 after that. Time to pay for years of bad asset management.
 
Every team that has a top QB in his final years of contract is going to pass through the same situation. The Steelers FO has kept almost every own FA they have wanted for at least 10 years. If I'm wrong remind me who did we lose in free agency?

Keeping their own stars is why they have being always tight against the cap but I prefer it this way than bringing unknowns and losing your core. The team has kept the Heywards, pounceys, Millers, Wards, Polamalus, Timmons and Carrier throughout a couple of decades, so have we lost? That's why we can be players in free agency like the jets, redskins, raiders, etc. So the bucs got lucky this season, they have been stockpiling talent drafting early due to being a ****** team for a long while and not being strapped to a top QB contract.

I personally think the Steelers FO has always managed the cap in a great way.
 
I think in the past they have been good to great. This off-season they have dragged ***. And it will probably cost the team some good players. I know some will say they did good getting under the cap without cuts. Sure. But if the team loses Hilton and Sutton and Bud and Juju in the same off-season, I will have to label it a fail. Especially with BigBen ready to ride off into the sunset.
 
To be clear, we would not have a cap problem if the cap continued to rise each year by $10-$12M as it has for the past decade plus.

Covid ****** us and our cap. We operate close to the cap. Normal projections should have had it about $210M this year. If that was the case, we were under the cap without any restructures. We would have been able to restructure Ben and keep either Bud or JuJu. Probably Conner as well. Instead we have a cap floor that is $30M less than what the projected cap would have been. That is why we were $28M over the cap before restructuring.
 
Cope said:
To be clear, we would not have a cap problem if the cap continued to rise each year by $10-$12M as it has for the past decade plus.

Covid ****** us and our cap. We operate close to the cap. Normal projections should have had it about $210M this year. If that was the case, we were under the cap without any restructures. We would have been able to restructure Ben and keep either Bud or JuJu. Probably Conner as well. Instead we have a cap floor that is $30M less than what the projected cap would have been. That is why we were $28M over the cap before restructuring.
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I get that but their was other contracts available to kick the can which to date they have done nothing. Am I just impatient or are they simply deciding this is the year they will set the can on the shelf. And if so what an odd time to do it.
 
Not many good teams are spending money on free agents. It's all about drafting, developing, keeping your own talent, and making cost-effective free agent moves.

 
slashsteel said:
I get that but their was other contracts available to kick the can which to date they have done nothing. Am I just impatient or are they simply deciding this is the year they will set the can on the shelf. And if so what an odd time to do it.
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I think they were probably waiting for more substantial salary cap information... the nfl pa and league are still bickering... the nfl pa agreed to that 175 mill cap just to get last year rolling, but as I pointed out multiple times, it’s impossible to operate under 180 million and even that is a stretch to field good rosters league wide this year... the league probably can easily do 185 but the owners probably don’t want to since they have the leverage...

over the next few days a metric ton of reworks should happen though... everyone probably knows what the agreement is going to be by now... so they probably know if its just going to be incorporating the actual numbers from last year or borrowing from future years so they know where to backlog money to...
 
slashsteel said:
I get that but their was other contracts available to kick the can which to date they have done nothing. Am I just impatient or are they simply deciding this is the year they will set the can on the shelf. And if so what an odd time to do it.
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The problem was the cap space. You had to kick the can because there was no space to sign players. Next year has tons of cap space, but we have to stay cap compliant this year. Might be one more year before we can go back to normal and resign players with a year left on their rookie contracts, to long term contracts.
 
Cope said:
The problem was the cap space. You had to kick the can because there was no space to sign players. Next year has tons of cap space, but we have to stay cap compliant this year. Might be one more year before we can go back to normal and resign players with a year left on their rookie contracts, to long term contracts.
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Cope, since the cap came in at just under $183 mil, do you think Dee Smith with the NFLPA is going to be in hot water? We know the league doesn't care about what the cap is, just as long there is one for parity. We’ve already seen a lot of veteran cuts made, some with a pretty big cap charge. The owners know they are going to make up for what was lost in 2020, with the windfall in 2021/2022. Think Smith will get an earful from the ranking vets in the union? I know if I was a good young player drafted still playing on my rookie deal, I’m smiling for when my new contract is up.
 
cant wait to see the crackboys putting Zeke, Amari and Dak on both sides of the ball in the near future.
 
Ike Kelly said:
Cope, since the cap came in at just under $183 mil, do you think Dee Smith with the NFLPA is going to be in hot water? We know the league doesn't care about what the cap is, just as long there is one for parity. We’ve already seen a lot of veteran cuts made, some with a pretty big cap charge. The owners know they are going to make up for what was lost in 2020, with the windfall in 2021/2022. Think Smith will get an earful from the ranking vets in the union? I know if I was a good young player drafted still playing on my rookie deal, I’m smiling for when my new contract is up.
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We'll see how the money gets spent in FA, and see if the hard cap shifts even further with a finalized TV deal. If price tags drop significantly, then Smith will be in hot water. I still think the top guys are going to be paid top money, so Smith's job should be safe. Heck anything over the original $175M floor is a win for the NFLPA.
 
Ike Kelly said:
Cope, since the cap came in at just under $183 mil, do you think Dee Smith with the NFLPA is going to be in hot water? We know the league doesn't care about what the cap is, just as long there is one for parity. We’ve already seen a lot of veteran cuts made, some with a pretty big cap charge. The owners know they are going to make up for what was lost in 2020, with the windfall in 2021/2022. Think Smith will get an earful from the ranking vets in the union? I know if I was a good young player drafted still playing on my rookie deal, I’m smiling for when my new contract is up.
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The issue is that it ultimately isn’t going to affect enough players to seriously challenge him... yeah there are going to be a lot of vet cuts and the mid tier ufas are going to get lower than normal deals, but the grunts won’t be affected and the stars won’t either... nor will the majority of vets under contract...
 
SteelerFan448 said:
Not many good teams are spending money on free agents. It's all about drafting, developing, keeping your own talent, and making cost-effective free agent moves.

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If i was a Bengals fan, I’d drive by The Browns family office and throw pennies in the street every day in hopes of a bus or truck “rectifying” their cheapskate owner issue...
 
My thought is alot of these more solid vets are going to sign 1 year deals and with the thought the cap jumps up next season will look to sign longer better deals next year.
 
I would like the Steelers to free up some money quickly!
 
LeXX75 said:
My thought is alot of these more solid vets are going to sign 1 year deals and with the thought the cap jumps up next season will look to sign longer better deals next year.
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Yes, I agree...for example I think there is a real possibility a guy like williamson signs back here cheap for a season and we cut Vince Williams... but a lot of the guys that aren’t top 30 to 50 ufas will probably be best served taking a one year cheap deal then banking a long term deal next season

i think several of our own ufas might stick around for that exact reason
 
Why cut Williams? We would still need to sign someone else. I get reducing his pay but at least give him the option vs just cutting
 
BLITZ said:
Why cut Williams? We would still need to sign someone else. I get reducing his pay but at least give him the option vs just cutting
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The theory is that Williams was pretty bad down the stretch and spillane was a viable starter... avery is also that same type of run stuffer but much cheaper... vince, even extended probably is a bit pricier than the other two combined...
 
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