Updating the Steelers salary cap situation heading into the 2025 regular season

The Pittsburgh Steelers have all 70 players under contract heading into the 2025 regular season with an additional International Pathway Program player on the price squad. With their 53-man roster set and 16 players (plus one) signed to the practice squad, their week of preparation for Week 1 has now commenced.

But with all these different moves as everything came together, where did it put the Steelers in regards to the 2025 salary cap? Do they have enough money heading into the season to conduct the business they would potentially need to do? Is there enough money to make one last move?

For those who have followed my salary cap articles, I begin a running tab at the beginning of the league year in order to keep track of everything. But with the changing of the requirements from being the top 51 salaries which count towards the salary cap to now everything having to count, listing out all the names and all the moves isn’t just unnecessary but almost impossible. Instead, I’ll take a look at the different categories of where the salary cap has changed since the Steelers cut down to 53 players.

Numbers compiled come courtesy of both overthecap.com (OTC) and spotrac.com.

Jaylen Warren & Jalen Ramsey

With the news coming on Monday that Jaylen Warren signed a two-year contract extension (or a new three year deal depending on how you look at it), his salary recap hit for 2025 actually went down. Warren was going to make $5.346 million in 2025 before he was given a contract for three years and $17.25 million. With reports of his signing bonus being $5.95 million along with a $1.1 million base salary for 2025, his new cap hit is just over $3 million and ultimately saved the Steelers over $2.26 million this season.

As for Jalen Ramsey, I still don’t have definitive numbers for him. OTC has been way off on their number for him ever since he was acquired by the Steelers as they have his cash paid in 2025 as his salary cap hit ($19.5 million). But all reports are that the Steelers paid a majority of this as a signing bonus when they redid his deal. The only difference now comes to if the Steelers kept the void years that were on Ramsey‘s contract which would affect if the bonus would be spread out over four or five years. Spotrac has the void years in there and therefore has him with a lower cap hit of $4.904 million. But last year Spotrac had Alex Highsmith’s cap number incorrect for a very long time as they included void years in his restructure that weren’t there. Therefore, I’ve been a little bit more reserved with the cap hit I’ve gone with Jalen Ramsey as I did not have the Steelers keeping the void years and therefore spreading out his signing bonus over four years, therefore having his cap hit at $5,816,250. I’m not saying my number is right, but for now I think it’s a safer estimate than Spotrac and I don’t see OTC being anywhere close to correct.

Players on injured reserve

The Steelers have placed nine different players on injured reserve at this for the 2025 season. The most expensive is Dean Lowery with more than $3 million. Being designated to return, Cory Trice is counting his full salary of just over $1 million. The other seven players all have split salaries so they are not making as much as they would have if they were on the 53-man roster. In all, the total for the Steelers for injured reserve at this time is $7,752,163.

Injury settlements

On top of the players on IR, the Steelers also reached an injury settlement with several players during the preseason. At this time, there have been three of these settlements reported in wide receivers Montana Lemonious-Craig and Brandon Johnson as well as outside linebacker Jeremiah Moon. At this time, I have not been able to find any financials in regards to how much each player paid, but they likely will not be more than $30k individually. Once they are, I include them in dead money as the players are no longer on the team.

52nd and 53rd salaries

As I mentioned continually throughout the offseason, the final two salaries when the Steelers cut down to 53 players would be in addition to their salary cap number once the moves were made. The final two salaries on the Steelers in terms of their salary cap number for 2025 are Logan Lee and Carson Bruener whose combined cap numbers total $1,769,253.

Practice squad

Compiling data from both Spotrac and OTC, the Steelers have four of their 16 players making a higher amount by being a vested veteran ($315,000 for the season) while 12 players receive the typical practice squad salary ($234,000 for the season). In adding up these numbers, the Steelers current cost for the practice squad for the 2024 season is $4,068,000. These amounts are paid out weekly to the players, so if a less expensive player is added in place of a vested veteran, this number could fluctuate throughout the season. The 17th player in the IPP program does not count towards the salary cap.

Salary differences of released players

As expected, the Steelers had a number of players who were not in the top 51 salaries during the offseason that made the team. Players such as Jack Sawyer, Spencer Anderson, Ryan McCollum, Esezi Otomewo, Yahya Black, Logan Lee, and Carson Bruener made the team but their contract did not count against the salary cap until 4 PM Tuesday. Instead, they replaced other players who were in the top 51 who did not make the team such as Cameron Johnston, Robert Woods, DeMarvin Leal, Mark Robinson, and Brandon Johnson. But with some of these players who were released, they also rolled dead money for the 2025 season from any signing bonuses these players have made with the Steelers. While it’s not impossible to calculate the differences of players who fell out of the top 51 salaries and those that moved in, it seems a bit futile to track those exactly.

The Steelers added new dead money from Cameron Johnston, Robert Woods, DeMarvin Leal, as well as others. Adding their dead money amounts to those from other players throughout the offseason and cuts from the Steelers in 2024, the Steelers current dead of money total is $16,688,343.

How much cap space is there?

After breaking all that down, it is now time to get to the overall purpose and what everyone ultimately wants to know. Based on my calculations, I have the Pittsburgh Steelers current salary cap space as slightly over $25.8 million.

During the offseason, I gave an estimate of about $7 million that I believe the Steelers might want to carry into the 2025 season. In 2021, I had been using $5 million as the number and had kept it steady for several seasons. But starting three seasons ago, I upped the amount due to increased minimum salaries and the cost of elevating players from the practice squad on game day. Since I’ve likely erred on the side of caution, the Steelers should be completely confident heading into 2025 with a large amount of salary cap space and could still add another player or give someone a new deal.

If the Steelers think they want to make another significant move that would need more cap space, a small restructure of a player that wouldn’t really change much, such as a Pat Freiermuth, could free up just enough of what the Steelers think they could additionally need. Even though Freiermuth is the prime candidate for a restructure as he has four years left on his deal, there hasn’t been the need to free up money this offseason.

For those who like to look at the salary cap websites, some of them differ slightly from my number. At OTC, their current cap number is $9,940,764 as of Tuesday night. They obviously have a number of differences, mainly in the contracts for Jalen Ramsey and Jaylen Warren. As for Spotrac, their reported number of the Steelers salary cap space is $27,246,821 as of Monday night. I often have differences from Spotrac such as them not taking into account offseason workouts and having the lower number for Jalen Ramsey, and a few differences in dollars here or there.

As I often say to close out my salary cap articles, if there are any questions please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer promptly.