Do the Steelers have the salary cap space for Aaron Roodgers?

The Pittsburgh Steelers are still in a holding pattern when it comes to their quarterback situation for 2025. While they wait for Aaron Rodgers, the Steelers do have the option of Mason Rudolph for next season. While we’re not sure when we should expect a decision in the Rodgers department, it has been reported that the issue of Rodgers joining the Steelers is not about the contract.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what that contract would look like at this time. Do the Steelers have enough salary recap space to handle adding Rodgers to the team?

What has been reported that Rogers will be signing a one-year deal if he joins the Steelers. Because this is the structure, there are less options involved when it comes to accommodating the contract.

At this time, the Steelers have approximately $31.5 million in salary cap space. If Rodger‘s contract came in under this amount, the Steelers would not have to make any moves the free up cap space at this time. But the Steelers are also going to need about $15 million at a later time when the season rolls around. The Steelers will need to sign their 2025 draft class, and come September they will have two more contracts that will count against the salary cap as well as signing the practice squad and leaving a buffer in order to add players throughout the season.

After taking these additional future expenses into account, it becomes more of a question as to how the Steelers could accommodate whatever contract is signed if Aaron Rodgers joins the team. In order to have the salary cap space, things will likely have to go one of three ways:

The contract is less than $17 million

I would be so excited if the Steelers got Aaron Rodgers to come play for this amount of money. Frankly, I don’t see it. But if Rogers contract only came to $17 million for 2025, the Steelers would not have to move another dollar in any way to accommodate his salary and be able to pay for everything they need to for the 2025 season. If this was the case, this would be a huge steal. But does anyone really think Rodgers would be signing for so little? I don’t think so either.

Using void years

Although a lot of NFL teams use void years in large contracts in order to spread out the cap hit, the Steelers have only ever done so during the 2021 offseason when the salary cap took a significant hit. It’s not to say that the Steelers can’t do this, but it would be for a special circumstance. When it would come to signing a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers at this point of his career and for only one season, I would call it a special circumstance if they chose to do it. By adding void years, the Steelers could move a significant portion of Rodgers cap hit into 2026 after he’s already gone. While it works, I’m not a big proponent of taking up a significant chunk of cap space with the player being gone after only one season. Although I think this has the most downside, it’s not that it couldn’t be used.

Clearing space in other ways

When it comes to shaving cap space with the current roster, there are three options: cut, extend, and restructure.

The biggest cut candidate for the Steelers has already happened in Larry Ogunjobi. Beyond him, there aren’t a lot of options that wouldn’t leave the Steelers in a predicament. For exapmple, technically the Steelers could cut Isaac Seumalo and save $7.875 million, but what would they be doing at guard? There are other players on the lower end of the spectrum, such as Cordarrelle Patterson, but the cap savings isn’t overly significant as it would only be $2.8 million.

Obviously, the Steelers could lower the 2025 salary cap number for T.J. Watt if they are able to come to a contract extension. Even if he gets record-breaking money, the contract would likely have the typical low cap number his first season with the Steelers once the deal has been made. With Watt’s cap hit coming at more than $30 million for 2025, there’s almost $9.5 million that which will count in 2025 no matter what. But if the Steelers do the typical low base salary in the first year because of the signing bonus, they could knock T.J. Watt’s cap number for 2025 down more than $10 million depending on the length of his new deal. Estimating it for sure is tricky at this time, but if the Steelers are looking to save on the 2025 cap it can most certainly be done.

When it comes to a contract restructure, the most likely candidate is tight end Pat Freiermuth. The reason Freiermuth is the right guy at this time is because he is only entering the second year of his current deal and has three more years beyond 2025 to spread out the money. In fact, it is so common that the Steelers restructure a player’s contract in the second year of any deal for four or more seasons, it’s almost predictable. With Freiermuth, the Steelers could save as much as (and a little over) $7.2 million on the 2025 salary cap. This would only add just over $2.4 million to Freiermuth’s cap number each of the next three seasons.

There’s only one player currently on the Steelers roster who could save more in a restructure in 2025. Alex Highsmith could save the Steelers almost $7.9 million if his deal were to be restructured again, but his contract was restructured last year in the second year of his deal. Doing so would only spread that amount over two additional years and would put his cap number nearing $25 million. With Freiermuth his extension wouldn’t even put him over the $15 million mark in any season.

The bottom line is there are some other ways to clear some cap space if the Steelers choose, but it’s not necessarily a ground-breaking amount.