Updating the Steelers salary cap situation after several moves on Monday

The Pittsburgh Steelers are well into 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, the Steelers have completed the 2025 NFL draft and signed a number of undrafted free agents (UDFAs). When it comes to the drafted players, their contracts will not count against the cap until they sign on the dotted line. Therefore the contracts that will land in the top 51, only estimated to be the top three picks for the Steelers this year, still fall into the “future expenses“ category. As for UDFAs, none of them will land in the top 51 so do not count at this time.

On Monday, there were three reported moves by the Steelers- two players being released and one signed. The Steelers officially released safety Ryan Watts after the unfortunate circumstances that he is expected to medically retire from the NFL from his neck injury in the final preseason game of 2024. Watts was not in the top 51 salaries, but does have $137,013 remaining in dead money from his signing bonus last year. This amount simply comes off the Steelers salary cap.

The other two moves the Steelers made were only reported and not announced by the team, which were releasing nose tackle Montravius Adams and signing wide receiver Robert Woods. Since it is one player coming off the roster and one coming on, I will not be using displacement for either player as they are simply filling in for the other. Adams had a $3.125 million salary cap hit for 2025 with $875 K prorated bonus and $2.25 million as his base salary. The $875 K will slide into dead money and the Steelers will save the $2.25 million.

As for Robert Woods, his reported salary is for one year and $2 million. I am moving forward with this being his actual amount unless I get a report otherwise and will adjust things. So after the addition of Woods and subtraction of Adams, the Steelers gain $0.25 million on the salary cap and lose just over half of that as dead money from Ryan Watts.

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 in dead money; No displacement: -$1.516 million
Calvin Anderson: Reported $1.585 million; After displacement: -$0.555 million
Max Scharping: Reported $1.1975 million; After displacement: -$0.1675 million
Montravius Adams: Saves $2.25 million; No displacement: +$2.25 million
Ryan Watts: $0.137013 million in dead money; No displacement: -$0.137013
Robert Woods: Reported $2 million; No displacement: -$2 million

Approximate salary cap space: Approximately $31.5 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 $31,400,088 under the salary cap. OTC does not have any of the three moves as of Tuesday morning. Otherwise, we have the exact same number.

Another credible salary cap website is spotrac.com, which has the Steelers at $33,308,600 as of Tuesday morning as they do have the Watts and Adams releases, but do not have the Woods deal yet. Other 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 $2.3 million to sign their rookie class after displacement based on their estimated contracts. 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.