Updating the Steelers salary cap situation after taking a dead cap hit

The Pittsburgh Steelers have kicked off the official start of the 2025 league year. With business continuing on, I am ready to make some updates to my numbers for the salary cap availability for the Steelers. While reports come in about a deal, it can sometimes take some time to know the exact financials within the contract. Relying heavily on reliable salary cap websites such as overthecap.com (OTC) or spotrac.com, when they are able to report a player’s contract numbers over the specific years I then update the salary cap situation with a more precise number.

Remember, to determine how much each player changes the Steelers’ salary cap space, their cap number must be adjusted due to roster displacement. As a reminder, roster displacement is taking into account only the top 51 contracts for a team count towards the salary cap during the offseason. As a larger contract comes on the books, it bumps a smaller contract out of the top 51. Therefore, it’s only the difference in those contracts that increases the salary cap number.

Since my last update, there was a previously unreported dead money hit from the Steelers trade for Mike Williams. It’s quite confusing why this charge is now there, but it has to do with their being void years on his contract and perhaps the “50% rule” in contracts where if a player’s salary in the same contract drops by more than 50% from on year to the next that the difference get converted to a signing bonus for cap purposes. The bottom line is it appears that the Steelers had Williams counting less on the salary cap last year ($627,500) and more on 2025 as dead money. The total for 2025 comes as $1.516 million.

It should also be noted that on Monday the Steelers announced they signed offensive tackle Calvin Anderson to a two-year deal. The financial terms of the deal were not announced, so it is unknown at this time how much it will affect the salary cap.

Here is the approximate breakdown of the Steelers salary cap space after some of the most recent deals by my own calculations. The numbers below are strictly the salary cap hit for each player in 2025.

Steelers salary cap space heading into free agency: Approximately $63.69 million

Workout Bonuses: Held until unused is refunded in the fall -$0.9072
Jaylen Warren: $5.346 million fro 2nd round RFA tender; No displacement: -$5.346 million
Larry Ogunjobi: Saves $7 million; No displacement: +$7 million
Malik Harrison: Reported $3.21 million; After displacement: -$2.324329 million
Kenneth Gainwell: Reported $1.79 million; After displacement: -$0.894982 million
DK Metcalf: Reported $11 million; After displacement: -$10.16 million
Ryan McCollum: Reported $1.03 million; After displacement: -$0.07 million
Darius Slay: Reported $10 million; After displacement: -$9.04 million
Brandin Echols: Reported $2.085 million; After displacement: -$1.125 million
Lecitus Smith: Reported $1.03 million; After displacement: -$0.07 million
Mason Rudolph: Reported $3 million; After displacement: -$2.04 million
Juan Thornhill: Reported $3 million; After displacement: -$2.04 million
Daniel Ekuale: Reported $2.8 million; After displacement: -$1.831667 million
Ben Skowronek: Reported $1.71 million; After displacement: -$0.68 million
Scotty Miller: Reported $1.1975 million; After displacement: -$0.1675 million
Isaiahh Loudermilk: Reported $1.3375 million; After displacement: -$0.3075 million
James Pierre: Reported $1.08 million; After displacement: -$0.05 million
Esezi Otomewo: Reported $1.03 million; No in top 51: -$0
Jeremiah Moon: Reported $1.03 million; No in top 51: -$0
Mike Williams: $1.516 million; No displacement: -$1.516 million
Calvin Anderson: No Report

Approximate salary cap space: Approximately $32 million

So how does my salary cap number compare to those reported by the major salary cap websites?

According to overthecap.com (OTC), the Steelers are $32,122,588 under the salary cap. With them having all moves on the books, we have the exact same number.

Another credible salary cap website is spotrac.com, which has the Steelers at $32,920,775. Differences here are they do not have the offseason workouts counting against the salary cap. Additionally, Spotrac counts the potential dead money hit for players not in the top 51 even though it does not need to count against the cap at this time until those players are officially released.

While the Steelers are going to need cap space for a number of things this offseason, it doesn’t have to be at this time. The Steelers will need as much as an additional $15 million, with $13 million not needed until September. The Steelers are estimated to need about $2 million to sign their rookie class after displacement based on their current draft picks. Expenses in September include when they need to account for all 53 players on the roster (about $1.8 million), sign their practice squad (between $4 million and $4.5 million), and have some carryover in order to do business throughout the year (about $7 million). But even taking these things into effect now, which they do not need to do as there are other moves which could be made to save some cap space, the Steelers have plenty of room in order to still be active in free agency.

Does something not make sense? Curious about any of the specifics? Leave your questions in the comments below and I will check in and do my best to answer them.