Updating the Steelers salary cap situation ahead of the new league year

The Pittsburgh Steelers are getting ready to kick off the 2025 league year. As business is about to start heating up, I have come up with my first salary cap availability for the Steelers. With this starting amount set, whenever the Steelers make a move I will adjust things accordingly. 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.

With this being my first salary cap update here at Steel Curtain Network for 2025, I’d like to take a moment to outline how I do things. I start now (just ahead of the league year) with what I believe to be the Steelers salary cap space for the upcoming season. I arrived at a number based on several sources, but it usually falls in line with OTC when I view any causes for discrepancy. As every move is made, I keep a running tab on how it affects the salary cap.

Whenever a player is added or subtracted to the roster, there is something to remember. To determine how much each player changes the Steelers’ salary cap space, their cap number must be adjusted due to roster displacement. 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.

Here is the approximate breakdown of the Steelers salary cap space as of Sunday afternoon ahead of free agency by my own calculations.

2025 Salary Cap: $279,200,000
2024 rollover: $6,831,465
Top 51 salaries: -$222,293,364
Dead Money: -$45,335

Steelers salary cap space heading into free agency: Approximately $63.69 million* (*before the DK Metcalf trade)

Now to explain some of my numbers.

This number DOES NOT include the trade for DK Metcalf. As of Sunday night, the exact specifics of the contract for how it breaks down each year are not known. Had there not been a new contract for Metcalf, he would have counted $18 million this season. Based on the overall details of the reported contract (5 years for $150 million with $33 million guaranteed), I would give a rough estimate of $9 million for 2025 before roster displacement. Taking this Metcalf estimate into account, I would put the Steelers around $55.5 million.

Additionally, there is a contract that has been tweaked recently and the exact value could still be adjusted. Cole Holcomb’s new contract is reported by both OTC and Spotrac as saving exactly $4 million, but it was reported by Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that the savings were more. There could be something more with Holcomb that might be different but it has not been reported yet. For now I am going with the number reported by both outlets.

Another area of contention is how much the Steelers have in rollover from the 2024 season. While OTC and Spotrac have the number at $6,831,465. Usually the number for each team is more highly publicized, but I did not see it so far this year. So I’m going with this number but will adjust things if it ends up being slightly different.

I should also note this number does not account for the offseason workout bonuses yet. This is an amount that comes off the salary cap for each player to be paid for every day of the various phases of offseason workouts for days they show up to the facility. Unlike other pay such as preseason games or per diem amounts during training camp which don’t count against the salary cap, this one does. But anything that is not used is returned to each team, usually in the middle of August. I was unable to find this exact amount reported anywhere, the number last year was just over $900k. When one of the outlets reports the amount, I will include it.

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 $63,692,766 under the salary cap as of Sunday evening. This is the exact same number I have.

Another credible salary cap website is spotrac.com, which has the Steelers at $46,782,775 as of Sunday night. They have DK Metcalf already with the Steelers but at $18 million for 2025. Also, they do not have a $250k pay increase for George Pickens received as part of the NFL’s proven performance escalator program.

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 $17 million, with $13 million not needed until September. The Steelers are estimated to need about $3 million to sign their rookie class after displacement based on their current draft picks based on estimates before the Metcalf trade. Once that trade is official, that number will be about $500k less with the Steelers no longer having a second round pick. The Steelers will also have the previously mentioned workout bonuses counting soon. 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 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.