Salary Cap Discussion

[Legacy User]

It seems like we could actually sign a free agent this year. When looking at the 2016 cap, we finally have freed ourselves of some old contracts.
For reference, here's the Over the Cap Numbers:

2016: http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/pittsburgh-steelers
2015:

In 2015, we had $15.5M in dead money from these 3 players
* Lamar Woodley was taking up $8.5M
* Troy took up $4.5M
* We also ate $2.5M for Scobee

In 2016, that $15.5M is offset by these pay/cap bumps:
* Ben...$6.7M
* Timmons: $6M
* Brown: $6.2M
* DeCastro: $5.6M
* There's more (like Mitchell..you get the idea)

My questions:
Who would you cut for cap?
Who would you resign?
Who's contract would you rework?

[Orangesteel]

Let me posit this:

If you have to throw money at a glaring hole in our defense, do you throw it at a sure fire premier edge rusher, or a ball hawk safety?

A lot of people seem to think Weddle is Tomlin's boy and making a move for him is on the way, but what about Eric Berry? Who are the available edge rushers worth the dough?

[chippedhamsandwich]

Timmons is scheduled to make $15 Million next year. I love that guy, plays hard, hardly misses time but that is A LOT of money. It's the last year of his contract, maybe he extends for more years at a better price?? Or could he be thinking, that he has made enough cash after next year and simply retire?

Pouncey is scheduled to make $10 Million, I have no idea what the hell is going on with that guy.

DeCastro is in the last year of his contract as well.

Here is more info (on the left 2015 on the right 2016)

Ben Roethlisberger $17,245,000 $23,950,000
Lawrence Timmons $9,251,250 $15,131,250
Antonio Brown $7,120,833 $12,370,833
Cameron Heyward $6,400,000 $10,400,000
Maurkice Pouncey $4,296,000 $10,551,000
David DeCastro $2,486,240 $8,070,000

Bill Barnwell (great football writer in my opinion) has a nice article here.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14602 ... emerge-nfl

[steelcountry]

I read that Barnwell article yesterday and thought it was complete trash. He doesn't go beyond the surface of our supposed cap issues.

We're set up quite well this for the cap. Playing around on overthecap, I came up with this:

Modest extension to Timmons.
Extension for Decastro - giving him top OG money
Harrison retires (I don't think he comes back again)
ERFA tenders for Cockrell, Nix, Hubbard (the last two were done yesterday)
Cut Cortez Allen and Suisham

That leaves 17.6M in space.

Sign Gay, McLendon, and Foster to 2-3 year deals worth 3M per season (cap hit would be less than 3 in first year). That would leave us like 10M in space.

We could easily sign a high quality FA that has a cap hit of 5M in the first year, leaving us plenty to sign the rookie class. As a reference, Justin Houston's 2015 cap hit was only 5.1M. His hit is crazy high for the next 5 years, but gives an idea of how you can work the cap.

Other places for cap relief: Cut Miller (4M), restucture Ben (easily save a few million, Ben's 2017 cap hit is actually pretty low at 18.2), and signing Brown to a big deal wouldn't even increase his cap hit this year.

[jebrick]

knock yourselves out http://overthecap.com/calculator/pittsburgh-steelers
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/ - all contracts by position

Extend Timmons and cut his cap hit in 1/2.
Extend DeCastro and lower the near cap hits.( pay him Mike Iupati numbers 5 years 40M) also cut his cap hit in 1/2 or more
Cut Cortez, Suisham, Shamarko Thomas, Jordan Zumwalt
ERFA Nix, Hubbard, Chickillo, Cockrell
RFA ( all original round value) Terence Garvin and Todman.
Resign Foster (James Carpenter numbers 4 years 19M)
Sign Will Allen for 1 or two years.
Sign Golden to 1 or 2 years
Sign Gay for 4 years
Try to sign Boykin
Sign McLendon (Sharrif Floyd type money 4 yrs 8M or less)