The Pittsburgh Steelers 2021 salary cap situation is not good at the moment. Steelers can’t just keep what they have and keep to the limits at the start of the league’s year on March 17th. Their situation is not impossible to deal with, but there must be decisions made regarding contracts to find out whether to keep them players for 2021 or to extend them beyond the next season.
At the forefront of this problem is defender Ben Roethlisberger. Taking a salary cap of $ 41.25 million this season, Roethlisberger is the biggest success in the entire NFL, according to ESPN Field Yates.
Looking at the players with the biggest capitalization hits in 2021 and there is so much uncertainty among the top 7:
1. Ben Roethlisberger: $ 41.25 million
2. Matt Ryan: $ 40.91 million
3. Aaron Rodgers: $ 37.57 million
4. Drew Brees: $ 36.15 million
5. Carson Wentz: $ 34.67 million
6. Jared Goff: $ 34.63 million
7. Mathew Stafford: $ 33M– Yates Field (@FieldYates) January 27, 2021
Many Steelers fans are asking how Roethlisberger managed to reach the top of the league with his salary cap reached. “How could he do that to the Steelers and put them in such a bad position?”
Honestly, the maximum number of Roethlisberger salaries is inflated the way it is strictly because the Pittsburgh Steelers organization selected so that it is so.
Going into the 2020 season, Ben Roethlisberger was scheduled to reach a salary cap of $ 33.5 million, with 12.5 million in dead money from his signature bonus, 8.5 million in base salary and 12.5 million in list bonus. Instead, the Steelers restructured Roethlisberger before the league’s 2020 year. As a reminder, restructuring does not pay a player more or less, it just changes when and how he is paid to manipulate the salary cap number. For Roethlisberger, the Steelers converted $ 19.5 million from what would have been his $ 21 million salary into a list bonus. In doing so, they managed to push $ 9.75 million for the 2021 season.
Before Roethlisberger’s restructuring last season, his maximum number of wages for 2021 would be $ 31.5 million. This number would have taken Roethlisberger out of the top seven on the list above and Russell Wilson would have taken the last place. While Roethlisberger’s $ 31.5 million cap was not yet desirable, it would carry only $ 12.5 million in dead money, instead of the now $ 22.25 million.
The fact that Roethlisberger now says much more to the salary cap is not his doing. It was the Steelers who offered Roethlisberger the restructuring to have more room for a salary cap for the 2020 season. This figure being so high for 2021 was not something that Roethlisberger planned to do for the Steelers, but something that the Steelers did for themselves.
What’s the answer? Is there any way Steelers can save a little more without kicking the can too far down the road?
The dead cap of $ 22.25 million will apply to the 2021 salary cap, regardless. The decisions the Steelers will have to make will be in relation to the other $ 19 million Roethlisberger is expected to make this season.
Of course, if Roethlisberger retires or is released, there will be $ 19 million. But there is also another option. If the Steelers extend Rothlisberger for a few more seasons, it could ease their cap number for 2021 in what appears to be a crucial ‘cap crunch’ year for the entire NFL.
If I were trying to make a deal with Roethlisberger and work on an extension, I would offer him an extra $ 0.5 million, which would be paid in 2021, to extend it for another two years. Instead of $ 19 million, I would end up playing against Roethlisberger for $ 19.5 million, $ 1.5 of which would be his base salary and $ 18 million would be his signing bonus. This would reduce the Steelers 2020 limit by $ 11.5 million and leave Roethlisberger below the $ 30 million limit reached for this year. It would also put $ 6 million in dead money in each of the next two years for the Steelers. Of course, they would have to offer Roethlisberger a base salary for the next two seasons, which I would do around the same range that he would be earning this $ 19 million season for. This number is not something that I am concerned with entering at this point because the Steelers can calculate it and however they want. If Roethlisberger retired after the 2021 season, he would count only $ 12 million in dead money against the limit, which will certainly increase to 2022. If he played again in 2022, his limit reached would be significantly lower, around $ 25 million if he earned a base salary / scale bonus of $ 19 million.
As you can see, the Steelers have options to deal with Ben Roethlisberger’s salary going forward. The only question they need to answer is whether they want to stretch things further or take advantage of the huge salary cap reached in one season in a year when the salary cap is set to fall. If they do, remember that it was their decision that Roethlisberger’s salary cap would be so high in 2021 based on their previous restructuring decisions.