Steelers currently have the least amount of dead money in the NFL heading into 2025
The start of the 2025 NFL league year is just about three weeks away. As teams prepare to begin the frenzy of signing free agents, each franchise must also be salary cap compliant by Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at 4 PM EST.
For the Steelers, they are in a nice situation where they have significant salary cap space heading into the new year. Although I am not prepared to give my official salary cap report at this time because of a number of things the league still needs to announce, such as the actual salary cap and how much rollover the Steelers have from 2024, I can safely say that the Steelers have a rough estimate over $50 million approaching the $55 million range. Yes, there will be about $17 million of added expenses they will need by the beginning of the season, but the Steelers have the space to make plenty of moves both in signing new players and giving new contracts.
There are a number of reasons why the Steelers are in good shape, one of which is they do not have a lot of dead money counting against the 2025 salary cap from players who are no longer on the roster. In fact, the Steelers have the lowest amount of dead money for 2025 (at this time) by a large margin according to overthecap.com (OTC)…
Current 2025 dead money: $45,335
That’s correct, the Steelers has less than $50 K in dead money going into 2025 less than a month away from the start of the new league year. The next closest team has over $225 K in the Kansas City Chiefs. At the other end of the spectrum, there are three teams carrying more than $50 million in dead money into 2025 at this time in the Philadelphia Eagles, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Cleveland Browns.
So why is there currently so little dead cap for the Steelers in 2025? The first reason is because of the word “currently“ as the Steelers have not made any significant salary cap casualty cut outside of releasing Preston Smith. And when it came to Smith, he had no dead money in his contract because there was no signing bonus as he was acquired via trade. While there still could be plenty of cuts made by the Steelers which would add to the amount of dead money for next season, none have been announced at this time.
Another reason the Steelers do not have a significant dead money hit going into 2025 at this time because they do not use void years with contracts in order to lower the cap early on the contract and have a large dead money hit after the player is gone. Outside of the salary cap reduced 2021 season, the Steelers haven’t used void years otherwise which has helped them out greatly.
So where is the small amount of dead money coming from? Here is a breakdown of the players according to OTC, all of which were undrafted free agents in 2024 who did not make the 53 man roster:
To put the dead money amount in perspective, the Steelers had around $30 million in dead money last season. While some of that money began to add up as the Steelers cut their roster down to 53 players, something that will happen again this season, it was just a fraction of the total dead money hits. The Steelers had a lot of dead money tied up in Diontae Johnson ($5.8 million), Mitch Trubisky ($4.6 million), Kenny Pickett ($3.7 million), Chuks Okorafor ($3.1 million), Patrick Peterson ($2.9 million), Allen Robinson ($1.9 million), and Mason Cole ($1.5 million). When Ben Roethlisberger retired, the Steelers carried $10.4 million in dead money into 2022. The biggest dead money hit by the Steelers came in 2019 with Antonio Brown counting as $21.12 million against the salary cap.
Looking at the list of names from last season, it’s hard to find someone listed there who Steelers fans would likely wish that was still on the team in 2024. It was necessary for the team to move on. For this reason, there are still players the Steelers should move on from for 2025 who would then add some significant dead money amounts. The most expensive of those would be Larry Ogunjobi who would carry over a $3.5 million dead money hit if the Steelers were to cut ties with him before the beginning of the year. Adding just this one player would still have the Steelers sitting with a fairly low dead money hit going into the 2025 season, but not as historically low as they are right now.
The bottom line is, the Steelers have put themselves in a place to not have a bunch of money due to players who they have had to move on from for 2025. There are still some players where the Steelers very well could make the move, but to have a dead money hit this low just weeks before the start of the new year is part of the equation which has the Steelers with significant salary cap space for 2025.
This stuff goes over my head a little bit sometimes, but I assume dead money also counts for players on the practice squad and IR (wasn’t Welschof on season IR)?
At a 50000ft view, dead money means you are paying for a player that is not on any version of your roster. The way the steelers structure contracts. (Very little guaranteed money outside of year 1 for anyone except QBs or top of your position contracts (Minkah and TJs current contracts) means they frequently have very little dead money on their books. Its a double edged sword. Its harder to sign outside talent with low guaranteed money contracts, but it also ensures that no contract mistake is ever franchise destroying. Its a responsible, although sometimes frustrating, way to build a roster.
It’s not necessarily any version of the roster. Players who are cut and then signed to the practice squad if they had money still unaccounted for from their signing bonus goes into dead money. It’s because they were temporarily off the roster. Hence why Welschof is on the list. But if they go straight on IR, there would be no dead money.
So in that case is it dead money because after being cut, and then resigned, they are on a new contract?
Bingo!
If a player is released to where they’re not on the 53-man roster when the season begins, or at any part of the season, money from their signing bonus goes in as dead money. Because these happen after June 1, only the prorated bonus from that season counts that year (if they have multiple years left) and the rest of their signing bonus counts the following year as dead money. That’s where the money above from these players came in. They were the only players released after June 1 last year who had more than one season left on their contract. What’s left is the rest of their signing bonuses that they received now counting against the cap.
Wow! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Steelers with effectively no dead money.
That is crazy low for dead money. I think the Browns are likely to be paying players not playing in 2025 (including Watson and Garrett) around $160M. Pretty staggering.
Browns are currently at $51 million in dead money. And as you said, it’s probably going to grow significantly.