Steelers Tough Decisions, Pouncey’s Contract, Moats’ Hopes

The NFL offseason is underway and as we prepare to evaluate combines, free agency, and the draft Steelers season never truly ends. We’ll be busy looking around for mentions of your Black & Gold so we’ve got you covered. Here’s your Steelers Morning Huddle for Friday, Feb. 27^th.

What to do with Troy?

The Steelers are in the midst of creating cap space and preparing for re-signings, signings and extensions in the next couple of weeks. One name that keeps getting brought up as a possible salary cap casualty for the Steelers is safety Troy Polamalu. It’s almost blasphemous to discuss Polamalu as a possible cut but with his base salary of $6 million due for 2015 and his decline in production, the Steelers are faced with that very tough decision.

ESPN’s Scott Brown explains how the Steeler could potentially ask Polamalu to take a pay cut, something they did with Ike Taylor last year successfully. Or they could just move on, something they did with Hines Ward three years ago when it was clear he still wanted to play. Reminding Steeler Nation that this is a business and there’s no time to be sentimental when there are trophies to get. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Pouncey on deck

Mark Kaboly of the Trib explains that the Steelers haven’t yet finalized the restructure for the contract for center Maurkice Pouncey, but expect to by next week. The team restructured the contracts for Marcus Gilbert and Mike Mitchell on Wednesday, and with Pouncey’s restructure, should have freed up about $10 million in cap space.

All the cap space clearing could go towards tagging linebacker Jason Worilds, which the Steelers aren’t likely to do, or the Steelers could keep on the restructuring kick and retool Antonio Brown’s deal. He’s due a base salary of $6 million but with a $9.8 million cap hit for 2015. Naturally, the Steelers are ultimately looking to extend/restructure Ben Roethlisberger’s contract and he’s due about $20 million per year.

Totes Arthur Moats

Linebacker Arthur Moats was signed to a one-year deal by the Steelers last offseason and will become a free agent on March 10^th. Teresa Varley caught up with the five year veteran linebacker and he explains that he’d prefer to stay in Black & Gold.

"“I love this organization. Even though I was only here for one year, from top to bottom it’s been a great experience. I would love to get something done sooner rather than later here. I love it here, my family loves it here.” – Arthur Moats"

Moats could be a low-risk free agent signing for the Steelers again this season, since they’re likely to let Jason Worilds hit the free agent market, they only have Jarvis Jones under contract for 2015 at the outside linebacker position.

Next: Steelers Fans Looking at Wallace

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