A lengthy look at the 2020 offseason ( bring some coffee)

[Scunge]

Let us turn our attention to the upcoming offseason, of 2020, and how difficult it is going to be. I can’t remember a time that the Steelers had so many players up for free agency, both as unrestricted, restricted free agents or playing in the last year of their contracts.

These are the unrestricted free agents:

Bud Dupree
Javon Hargrave
Nick Vannett
BJ Finney
Artie Burns
Sean Davis
Tyler Matakevich

And here are the restricted free agents:

Mike Hilton
Matt Feiler
Zach Banner
Jordan Dangerfield

Finally, the players all in the last year of their respective contracts:

TJ Watt
JuJu Smith Schuster
James Conner
Cam Sutton
Al Villanueva
Anthony Chickillo
Ramon Foster
Tyson Alualu
Cam Heyward


The cutting of Donte Moncreif hopefully preserved the 3rd round comp pick but it did immediately help with cap savings. We are most likely going to be able to roll over some $6 million to next year, provided they don’t do something stupid like trying to sign a veteran RB or WR that quickly eats up that $6 million. Those that want to sign a Dez Bryant or Jay Ajayi, all that is going to do is carve into that cap savings that we desperately need heading into next year.

Of the above players, some are immediately cast aside. We want Artie Burns and Sean Davis to leave for free agency and with a little luck sign some nice deals that may reap us some comp picks in 2021. Count me as one who wants Tyler Matakevich gone as well, time to add some younger, faster, more athletic players for special teams.

In my view, the Steelers have to figure out a way to keep Bud Dupree, Javon Hargrave and Nick Vannett. And it would be great to keep BJ Finney.

Of the Restricted Free Agents, it would be nice to be able to keep Mike Hilton, Matt Feiler and Zach Banner. Unfortunately, the RFA 2nd round tender will be somewhere around $3.3 million. This season BJ Finney played with that 2nd round tender to the tune of $3.1 million and that number goes up each year. To put 2nd round tenders on all three of those players would add up to almost $10 million. If they give Banner the lowest tender, I think that still is some $2.4 million? So, two 2nd round tenders on Fieler and Hilton and the low tender on Banner still amounts to $9 million.

Now, yes, I have been using the words ‘nice’ and, ‘it would be great’, to keep this player and that but tough decisions have to be made. We can’t keep everybody, but do you keep a player that has one year left on his deal and risk losing a player that you want to sign and be a vital member of your team for the next 3-4 years???

The one thing that seems real obvious to me is that this offseason will be difficult in that they are going to have to cut some vets with one year remaining on their deals. I also think that they will do some restructures and sign players to new extensions, but it really does appear that they are going to have to be real busy before the league year starts.

For example, I have been beating this drum for a while now but they should cut Barron, Chickillo, Foster and Alualu and free up $17 million heading into March.

Again, this is what I would do. What I do next is I go to Steven Nelson and restructure his contract. He has two years left on his deal. He has been a fabulous addition, rock solid and his contract is interesting. He has a Roster Bonus of $3 million due in March and a base salary of $5.25 million. They can take $4.25 million of his base and that $3 million roster bonus and pay it to him in the form of a signing bonus. That 7.25 million is then prorated over two years. The end result? That creates $3.625 million in cap space.

For the time being, I am only going to tally the restructures and new extensions. So, we have $3.625 million added to the $6 million that carried over, we are up to $9.625 million in cap space.

I know people don’t like the cutting of Foster but of your two starting tackles, Feiler is an RFA and Big Al is entering the last year of his deal and BJ Finney is an unrestricted free agent and Banner is an RFA too. The O-Line is getting old but you have a lot of younger players that are due for their second NFL contracts and you have your LT entering his last year, can you really afford to let Foster come back and finish out the last year of his contract?? No, I don’t really think that you can, that $4 million is needed to help tender Fieler/Banner, or give Feiler a new contract, or give Finney a new contract, or give Big Al a new extension. What is sort of funny, is that BJ Finney can literally price himself out of consideration if he really does well in his replacing of Pouncey, if he puts good/great film on tape, some team will overpay for him.

Again, to put the 2nd round tender on Feiler would be $3.3 million and that immediately goes into effect the first week of March, the full amount counts against the cap. So, if you had $6 million, you tender Matt and now you have just $2.7 million.

With my Steven Nelson restructure I have the cap space up to $9.625 million. What if they gave Big Al and Matt Feiler new extensions/contracts?? You look at RTs that Feiler compares to and the price is around 4-5 years, $30-35 million. Look at the contracts of those RTs ranked from 10-15 and they average $6-7 million per season. Even if Matt Feiler was signed to a new 5 year deal for say $32 million, it would probably result in a first year cap hit of some $ 3 million, so why wouldn’t the Steelers just give him a new contract and just skip giving him a 2nd round tender? You are saving a little bit of money and if you went the RFA tender route then you are faced with him possibly leaving for free agency in 2021. But still you have a starting RT who is going to cost you at least $3 million plus for his 2020 season and the money has to come from somewhere.

Big Al?? I think they can add a two year extension and take some of his $5 million base from 2020 and add it to the signing bonus and spread it out over the 3 years. I don’t think it will be a very big amount of savings, maybe lower his cap hit from $8.4 million in 2020 to say $6.4 million, so a cap savings of $2 million?

Add that to the $9.625 and we are now up to $11.625 million.

We start out with $6 million.
Restructure Steven Nelson to get up to $9.625 million
Give starting RT Matt Feiler a new contract 5 years, $32 million, a first year cap hit of $3 million, so we are down to $6.625 million in cap space.
Give starting LT Al Villanueva a 2 year, $22 million extension, take some of his $5 million base and restructure it, free up $2 million, we are now up to $8.625 million in cap space.

Of the 2017 draft class, we worry about JuJu and TJ Watt until 2021. In that offseason they can pick up Watt’s 5th year option and they can franchise JuJu or sign him to a new deal. Conner you don’t worry about until that 2021 offseason. Cam Sutton, that is the player you have to worry about THIS upcoming offseason. Instead of trying to sign Mike Hilton to some insane nickel back contract, which can be anywhere from $18-25 million, they should instead try to sign Cam Sutton for a little less money. He is the #3 CB who will backup both Nelson and Haden and he can be a great nickel back, much better in coverage than Mike Hilton, Mike is really like a 3rd safety who plays better close to the line of scrimmage, in coverage he is a liability. Haden is up in years and Sutton could very well replace him as the starter sooner rather than later, Cam can do that, Hilton can’t, which is why he is the priority signing.

Where could the money come to sign Cam Sutton to a fairly large contract?? Something like 3 years, $18 million? Well Cam Hayward will be in the last year of his contract. And he is still playing at a real high level and is one of the leaders of the team and certainly the defense. I can see the team offering him a 3 year, $33 million extension, reworking his base salary for 2020, yada, yada, yada, and lowering his 2020 cap hit of $13.25 million to $9.75 million, freeing up $3.5 million??

That brings the salary cap space up from $8.625 million to $12.125 million.

If they sign Cam Sutton to a new contract, give him that 3 year, $18 million, say an $8 million signing bonus with a first year base salary of $1 million, that could be a first year cap hit of just $3.667 million. I look at CBs like Pierre Desir, Darryl Roberts, Jonathan Jones to come up with what Cam Sutton might get. Anyway, that takes the cap space down to $8.458 million.

To sum up so far, I have signed both of our starting tackles to protect Ben for the next two years Al Villanueva and Matt Feiler, I have signed Cam Heyward to a new extension, Cam Sutton has been signed for the next 3 years to be our nickel back, #3 CB and potential starter should Haden falter.

On offense, we gave up a 5th round pick for Nick Vannett and while it may not appear like it this season but he has the look of a fine #2 TE, a combo TE who can block and catch, a perfect complementary TE. But he is an unrestricted free agent and if you look at what good, quality #2 TEs go for in free agency, the price is in that $18-20 million range. Detroit really overpaid for Jesse James. Look at Jack Doyle, Tyler Kroft, CJ Uzomah, Nick Boyle, those are all $6 million per season TEs. I can see the Steelers hedging their bets against McDonald’s injury history and signing Nick Vannett to a very good deal, something like 3 years, $19 million, $6 million signing bonus? He could have a first year base of $1 million and a first year cap hit of $3 million?

That lowers the cap space to $5.458 million.

So, what players do we still have to make a decision on? Who to keep? Let go?

Bud Dupree, Javon Hargarve, BJ Finney, Mike Hilton, Zach Banner. Wouldn’t it be great to keep all of them? But how? Banner and Hilton are RFAs and to keep their rights we would have to put a 2nd round tender on them, which would be $3.3 million per player, $6.6 million is more than what we have left ($5.458 million). The franchise tag on either Dupree or Hargarve would easily be over $15 million. BJ Finney was seriously considered by the Saints last offseason, demand for offensive linemen is really high, not enough to go around. Is Finney any good, his time subbing for Pouncey could really drive up his market. I can see somebody giving him a $4 million per year contract if he performs well these next few games, 3 year, $12 million, 4 years, $16 million.

Again, where is the money going to come from?? David DeCastro could do a restructure, free up some $3.5 million. They could restructure Stephon Tuitt again, for a 3rd time and free up $4-5 million. Say they did both of those restructures and it got us up to $13 million in cap space, might that be enough?

Look at what some of the top OLBs got in free agency last season, Green Bay’s Z’Darius Smith and Preston Smith. Z signed a 4 year, $66 million contract that had only a first year cap hit of $7.2 million. Preston signed a 4 year, $52 million deal that had a first year cap hit of just $6 million.

With Javon Hargrave, I look at some DTs like Chicago’s Eddie Goldman and Akiem Hicks, I look at Cleveland’s Sheldon Richardson, I look at the Ravens Brandon Williams. Yeah, Goldman and Williams signed for $42 million and $52 million but their first year cap hits were $3.8 million.

It may seem impossible to sign both Dupree and Hargrave but it isn’t really, if you have the cap space. Say the Steelers give Dupree what Z’Darious Smith got from Green Bay, say the Steelers give Hargrave what Williams or Goldman got, the combined first year cap hits of Dupree and Hargrave for 2020 would only be $11 million. And we are theoretically with $13 million in cap space, so we can sign them but it leaves with only $2 million in cap space. And we still have BJ Finney and Zach Banner and Mike Hilton, still have the rookie draft pool to worry about, still have to worry about having a cushion to enter the season like they always want to do, you are about $15 million short.

Unless, you cut Chickillo to free up $5 million, you cut Mark Barron to free up $5.25 million, you cut Foster to free up $4 million, you cut Tyson Alualu to free up $2.75 million. You do those 4 cuts and you now have $19 million in cap space, more than enough to tender Hilton, tender Banner, sign Finney to a 3 year deal, have enough money for the rookie draft pool, and then still be able to enter the season with 3-4 million to spare.

One thing I would like to point out is that the Steeler trading away their first rounder and both 5th rounders means they have less picks in their draft class pool, so it is less money needed. Funny how so many publications get that so wrong, saying we will need $6-7-8 million for the draft class pool, just not the case at all. We only will need some $4.65 million by my calculations. Not having that first round pick means that player will not gobble up $2.8 million of our salary cap for 2020.

I tender Hilton with the idea of trading him, if Detroit can fetch a 5th rounder for their nickel back Quandry Diggs, then maybe the Steelers can get a 4th for Hilton.

This all looks very doable to me, they just have to be very busy and not waste any time in the offseason, the minute the season ends they should be working hard on all of the restructures, extensions, new contracts and whatnot. They can’t dilly dally and wait too long, put if off until the last minute, before the madness starts in March, by that time it will be too late.

I know people think why don’t we just restructure Ben’s contract? To me that thing is a mess, the numbers are insane, the roster bonuses are insanely high and he only has two years left on his deal, how do you restructure something that has so little time left on it?? You could free up some money theoretically for 2020 but then it might mean that Ben might have a $40+ million cap hit that really takes it toll on the cap in 2021. Remember we have Watt that will either be signed to a new huge extension or be on that 5th year option, we will have to pay JuJu or put the franchise tag on him. Are they forced to keep Conner because no RBs were acquired/stepped up to be that starting RB?? Restructuring Ben when they really don’t know for certain how his arm responds is dangerous and it makes for a dicey proposition. I think they look to avoid reworking his contract.

[LakecrestSteeler]

You did not mention the CBA expiring after 2020 season.

I do not know what that means for signing contracts, but I am sure it impacts some of your logic above. Maybe it does maybe it doesn’t; one could play the devils advocate both ways I suspect.

I spend no time thinking about this stuff like you do Scunge. When there is a good one off contract like Bell’s I may go deep on some things, but nothing like the work you put in. Your excellent post really does illustrate the complexity of the game and why status quo is often the lesser of two evils with some of the players.

I would guess the teams operate normally with the looming CBA expiration, and deal with the consequences at a later point by restructuring as necessary.

So I am guessing you have an opinion on the CBA expiration and how it impacts your logic. What is it?

[Kodiak]

Only guys on that list that really matter are Hargrave and, I suppose, Dupree. Then Watt, JuJu and Heyward...Conner has to prove he can stay healthy and be the guy (RB is otherwise not a position you spend big money on).

Just keep borrowing from future years, because Ben probably only plays 2 more years and then you'll save like $25M per year not paying a HOF QB. 2 years of that is over $50M in cap space, which goes a long way to solving the problems Scrunge mentions.

[R_S]

For being slow and non-athletic, Matakevitch sure finds the ball on teams. 2nd in the NFL in ST tackles. So if you're going to bust on his roster spot, at least do it for the right reasons.

[bradshaw2ben]

front page worthy

https://sportsandshit.com/a-long-look-a ... offseason/

[Scunge]

Yeah, the new CBA, hard to really wrap my mind around what that may do for us.

I have thought a lot about whether or not a Larry Bird NBA type of exemption for QBs could actually be a good thing??

I don't know, if you have a QB who is exempt from your normal salary cap, then what might those QBs then ask for?? Doesn't the salary cap and the QBs being a part of that, sort of put a ceiling on what they can earn?? But if they were exempt from the cap, what would some owners, with very deep pockets being willing to spend to get that franchise 'elite' QB?? Would the Steelers and other smaller teams be able to pay for say a Big Ben if those QBs are now suddenly making $50 million per season???

I have thought, well, maybe some teams don't have an elite QB but have an elite pass rusher that makes over $100 million with their contract. Maybe it would be great for each team to have an exemption that they can use on one player, or maybe two players, it can be any position. It could be a QB and OLB, or a QB and LT, or a RB and WR, or a DE and CB, etc.

Imagine if the Steelers had two such exemptions and were able to use them on say, Ben and Brown and then only had to worry about Bell impacting their salary cap say two years ago? Why should teams that draft well, develop players be penalized because they can't pay them all, fit them all under the salary cap??

In terms of Matakevich, sorry, but does he block? Where is Matakevich springing those devastating blocks that spring big returns?? You look at our blocking on punts and kicks and it sucks and part of it is we have really lame, slow athletes out there. As far as him making tackles, so? Somebody on the team has to I guess, doesn't mean anything to me. Is he delivering forceful tackles that are causing fumbles? To me it is kinda of like an ILB who leads his team in tackles, yet never has any tackles for loss, most of his tackles come after 5, 8 yard gains and the run defense gives up 135 yards per game at over 5 yards a rush. But you see some of these ILBs with the high tackles, like look at me I had 150 tackles, and yet the run defense is poor. I feel that way about Matakevich on special teams. Is Matakevich helping us to lead the NFL in punt and kick coverage, are we limiting returns in a grand fashion? Or is that just as mediocre, bad as the rest of our special teams?? I want hungry, ambitious young prospects that play special teams but will eventually become starters, think Brett Keisel, that type of player and prospect. With everything else that we have to contend with, all of the players that we have to figure out how to sign, do we really want to give Dirty Red a 3 year, $4.5 million contract??

[El Kabong]

Yeah, the new CBA, hard to really wrap my mind around what that may do for us.

I have thought a lot about whether or not a Larry Bird NBA type of exemption for QBs could actually be a good thing??

I don't know, if you have a QB who is exempt from your normal salary cap, then what might those QBs then ask for?? Doesn't the salary cap and the QBs being a part of that, sort of put a ceiling on what they can earn?? But if they were exempt from the cap, what would some owners, with very deep pockets being willing to spend to get that franchise 'elite' QB?? Would the Steelers and other smaller teams be able to pay for say a Big Ben if those QBs are now suddenly making $50 million per season???

I have thought, well, maybe some teams don't have an elite QB but have an elite pass rusher that makes over $100 million with their contract. Maybe it would be great for each team to have an exemption that they can use on one player, or maybe two players, it can be any position. It could be a QB and OLB, or a QB and LT, or a RB and WR, or a DE and CB, etc.

Imagine if the Steelers had two such exemptions and were able to use them on say, Ben and Brown and then only had to worry about Bell impacting their salary cap say two years ago? Why should teams that draft well, develop players be penalized because they can't pay them all, fit them all under the salary cap??

In terms of Matakevich, sorry, but does he block? Where is Matakevich springing those devastating blocks that spring big returns?? You look at our blocking on punts and kicks and it sucks and part of it is we have really lame, slow athletes out there. As far as him making tackles, so? Somebody on the team has to I guess, doesn't mean anything to me. Is he delivering forceful tackles that are causing fumbles? To me it is kinda of like an ILB who leads his team in tackles, yet never has any tackles for loss, most of his tackles come after 5, 8 yard gains and the run defense gives up 135 yards per game at over 5 yards a rush. But you see some of these ILBs with the high tackles, like look at me I had 150 tackles, and yet the run defense is poor. I feel that way about Matakevich on special teams. Is Matakevich helping us to lead the NFL in punt and kick coverage, are we limiting returns in a grand fashion? Or is that just as mediocre, bad as the rest of our special teams?? I want hungry, ambitious young prospects that play special teams but will eventually become starters, think Brett Keisel, that type of player and prospect. With everything else that we have to contend with, all of the players that we have to figure out how to sign, do we really want to give Dirty Red a 3 year, $4.5 million contract??

It sounds dangerous to me for a small market team like the Steelers to start exempting players from the salary cap.

[Lynch]

Christ dude... In my mind, not taking individual contract $'s into account, locking up Watt is priority numero uno. Feiler #2. Extend Finney and Banner, and frankly, with the the rest, let the chips fall where they may. Juju and Conner included

[Steelafan77]

Some Good News for the Steelers....

@SteelersPRBurt
#Steelers WR Diontae Johnson & LB Ola Adeniyi were cleared by an independent neurological consultant today to return to game action & are no longer in concussion protocol. https://twitter.com/SteelersPRBurt/stat ... 1416179712

No Conner or Smith-Schuster tomorrow....

[Minkah'n Big Plays]

Some Good News for the Steelers....

@SteelersPRBurt
#Steelers WR Diontae Johnson & LB Ola Adeniyi were cleared by an independent neurological consultant today to return to game action & are no longer in concussion protocol. https://twitter.com/SteelersPRBurt/stat ... 1416179712

No Conner or Smith-Schuster tomorrow....

We knew JJSS(concussion and knee) and JC had no shot.

I think getting DJ back might swing the game in our favor.

Also, looks like the line dropped to -6. We need MR to not turn the ball over. May be asking a lot even against this college team.

[COR-TEN]

I'm thinkin' coffee, lunch, some snacks, and plenty of liquids, in addition to layers for when the sun goes down.

Good stuff.

[tbsteel]

I put the odds of Hargrave coming back less than 5%. The guy deserves to get paid and go to a team that will use him more.

I think the ship sailed on Dupree as well, unless he just loves Pittsburgh or his agent is dumb. The Steelers made their choice when they didn't re-sign him last year. It's a shame because he improved a lot last year, and then took another step up this year to become a quietly pretty damn good overall player, but the only way they keep him is through the franchise tag and I can't see them using up that much cap space, since we're already at the point of talking about restructures to free up room. Don't know why he'd jump at an offer from a team who will have less cap space than the vast majority of NFL teams without seeing what is out there for him.

Steelers only hope next year is that Ben isn't washed. Realistically, he is probably done being a high level/championship level QB. Gonna be 38 coming off a non-contact elbow injury, has taken more hits than most QBs do in 2 lifetimes, and the way he moves physically anymore is... awkward. Couple that with the lack of real great skill players around him and I think next year could be ugly (especially in comparison to what the expectations probably will be). But hey, I'm sure I'll talk myself into this team being some quiet SB contender going into next year, and he's earned the right to play as long as he wants to.

They have got to start prepping to accumulate resources to make the move to get their next QB. Use FA to improve the team as best they can, but they can't sacrifice anymore future draft picks going forward. They need to start trading down and out of rounds to accumulate future picks and enough ammo to make a move for their guy when they find him. This idea of just sitting on their hands and "Oh, we'll deal with the whole QB issue once we bottom out and really suck" is no way to run a franchise. Start planning now.

[LakecrestSteeler]

Additional detail to add to the 2020 outlook due to it being a “Final League Year”.

Final League Year Rules:

-Teams get an extra Transition Tag....not sure this can help us considering the Bell fiasco, but we and all teams have an extra tag.

-No post-June 1 designations allowing teams to absorb a chunk of dead money in the following season’s salary cap.

-Contracts signed beyond 2020 can’t have pay increases that exceed 30% of prior year’s salary.

-Incentive bonuses usually count in the following season’s salary cap. In the Final League Year the incentive bonuses hit the salary cap immediately when earned.

Source:

Pull up the NFL CBA pdf and search for “Final League Year”, and the contract is littered with this term 33 times.

Or

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/260 ... -offseason

[955876]

1) good write up. Nice work.

2) you have waaay too much time on yours hands

[StillerDownSouth]

2019 cap is 188 million, NFL told owners yesterday 2020 cap should be between 196-201 million. If it goes to 201m, that’s an extra 13m to spread around, there’s Bud and Hargrave money.

[Rod & Wire Mill]

2019 cap is 188 million, NFL told owners yesterday 2020 cap should be between 196-201 million. If it goes to 201m, that’s an extra 13m to spread around, there’s Bud and Hargrave money.

Would love to see it

[Jobu]

2019 cap is 188 million, NFL told owners yesterday 2020 cap should be between 196-201 million. If it goes to 201m, that’s an extra 13m to spread around, there’s Bud and Hargrave money.

So what’s the deal with the $20+ million AB cap hit? Has that already been spent?

[StillerDownSouth]

2019 cap is 188 million, NFL told owners yesterday 2020 cap should be between 196-201 million. If it goes to 201m, that’s an extra 13m to spread around, there’s Bud and Hargrave money.

So what’s the deal with the $20+ million AB cap hit? Has that already been spent?

That was our cap hit this year for AB, that should be coming off the books.

[LakecrestSteeler]

2019 cap is 188 million, NFL told owners yesterday 2020 cap should be between 196-201 million. If it goes to 201m, that’s an extra 13m to spread around, there’s Bud and Hargrave money.

So what’s the deal with the $20+ million AB cap hit? Has that already been spent?

I was wondering that as well. If you see my post above, the post June 1 designation allows the team to defer some of the dead money forward to the following seasons. Not sure what the dates ended up being for Brown, or what the Steelers did. Just heard $20 million dead money.

[Scunge]

The Steelers already spent that Antonio Brown money. I know people get confused on this all the time, thinking that well, there is $20 million to play with but it doesn't work like that. That large chunk of money was the prorated signing bonus that the team had to absorb all in one year rather than spread out over the life of his remaining contract. The 2020 salary that Brown was to be paid is not free money, they already took that money that was going to be paid to him and they have spent it already, that is how they signed players to new extensions and contracts this past year.

The figures, the 2020 cap has been speculated to be $200 million, the sites that I get my data from were projecting that to begin with, so that really doesn't help any.

All of the signings that we have had to do during the season has taken down some of the money that we will roll over into next season. I see some projections now that we are down from $6.1 million to $5.4 million in cap space to start the new 2020 year??

In terms of post June 1st cuts, spreading the hit over two years, all of the guys I want to cut are in their last years, pretty straight forward. You cut Chickillo and don't have to pay him his base of $4.5 and 500 k roster bonus, you save immediately $5 million. You cut Barron and you don't have to pay $4.5 base and 750K roster bonus, you immediately save $5.25 million.

The day after the season ends, whether that is after our last regular season game or after a deep playoff run, the Steelers need to start off by cutting those two players and getting our cap space to $16 million. The franchise tag for Dupree would be a little over $16 million. They have to make a lot of moves before March, no time to ease into it or wait until August to give out new contracts or extensions to free up money, by that time it will be too late.

[Jobu]

The Steelers already spent that Antonio Brown money. I know people get confused on this all the time, thinking that well, there is $20 million to play with but it doesn't work like that. That large chunk of money was the prorated signing bonus that the team had to absorb all in one year rather than spread out over the life of his remaining contract. The 2020 salary that Brown was to be paid is not free money, they already took that money that was going to be paid to him and they have spent it already, that is how they signed players to new extensions and contracts this past year.

The figures, the 2020 cap has been speculated to be $200 million, the sites that I get my data from were projecting that to begin with, so that really doesn't help any.

All of the signings that we have had to do during the season has taken down some of the money that we will roll over into next season. I see some projections now that we are down from $6.1 million to $5.4 million in cap space to start the new 2020 year??

In terms of post June 1st cuts, spreading the hit over two years, all of the guys I want to cut are in their last years, pretty straight forward. You cut Chickillo and don't have to pay him his base of $4.5 and 500 k roster bonus, you save immediately $5 million. You cut Barron and you don't have to pay $4.5 base and 750K roster bonus, you immediately save $5.25 million.

The day after the season ends, whether that is after our last regular season game or after a deep playoff run, the Steelers need to start off by cutting those two players and getting our cap space to $16 million. The franchise tag for Dupree would be a little over $16 million. They have to make a lot of moves before March, no time to ease into it or wait until August to give out new contracts or extensions to free up money, by that time it will be too late.

Thanks Scunge. That’s pretty much answers what I was asking.

[bradshaw2ben]

There will be no post-June 1 cuts this offseason, unless they announce a new CBA before the end of the league year. No June 1 cuts under the old CBA in Last League Year.

[Scunge]

I haven't been successful in finding out about he RFAs and the same round (lowest) tender.

If the Steelers put the lowest tender on say, Zach Banner, something like $2.2 million?, if a team signs him do we get the same round compensation of a 4th round pick for him? He was a 4th rounder for Indy. Even though we picked him up and aren't the team that drafted him, would we get a 4th if somebody offered him a deal and we did not match it??

Anybody know??

In the next day or two I am going to do an updated mock of the 2020 offseason and it really looks promising. I think the Steelers will only have to do 4 restructures and two contract extensions, cut Chickillo and still be able to sign Dupree, Hargrave, Vannett and tender Hilton, Feiler and Banner. They will still be able to keep Foster, Barron, Alualu and really only lose BJ Finney.

[LakecrestSteeler]

Something the league should work on collectively is the franchise tag process. I don’t know when or why it happened, but all of the sudden getting tagged has turned into this huge red scarlet letter for the players; a dreaded event by players and agents alike.

Why does it have to be a negative?

The league should come up with some additional incentives to make any of the tags a badge of honor rather than a root canal.

Maybe the league could add some additional perks:
-automatic national advertising contracts and money.
-face of the league events and notoriety.
-pro-bowl honors for all tagged players.
-perhaps a uniform designation...a literal scarlet letter.
-offseason vacation packages from league pool of money...designated cruise ship etc.
-Superbowl ceremony
-access to NFL jet for the calendar year.
-maybe some a guaranteed vote or two for Canton, to give the players an edge over other candidates.

Just some ideas Mr. Goodell if you are listening. The franchise tags don’t have to a dreaded event in the players’ lives. And it wouldn’t take much money in the scheme of things to make it a reward instead of a perceived punishment! Fix it.