Pittsburgh Steelers 2019 positional spending: offense
By Tommy Jaggi
Managing a salary cap is one of the most important jobs of a general manager. Poor financial decisions are made all the time in the NFL, and the teams that make those decisions typically suffer because of it. The Pittsburgh Steelers are never really a team to make big splashes in free agency, but they aren’t immune to making bad decisions of their own.
Every team is different in the way they balance their checkbook and which positions they choose to spend a majority of their money on. Here is the Steelers’ 2019 cap spending on offense by position and how they compare to other NFL teams, according to Over the Cap:
Quarterback – 7th ($27.87M)
After Ben Roethlisberger’s lucrative new extension, you probably could have guessed that Pittsburgh spent more than most teams on this position. The Steelers are currently spending the 7th most money in the league at QB for the 2019 season.
Good quarterbacks get paid, and Ben’s extension wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Though this takes up a good bit of their overall cap space, it’s hard to win without a quarterback. It could be worse – the Redskins are currently spending the 4th most in the league on their quarterbacks, and are the 2nd highest paid offense in the league.
Running Backs – 32nd ($3.0M)
Now, this is what I like to see. I don’t place a high emphasis on the running back position, as five guys up front have to do their job before a RB can be successful. The Steelers are the cheapest team in the league right now when it comes to paying running backs.
I would have been furious if Le’Veon Bell had taken the deal originally offered to him by the Steelers. Pittsburgh has shown that you can still have success running the ball without paying top-dollar at the position. 3 of the top 4 teams that currently pay running backs the most are the Bills, 49ers, and Cardinals. Is that really what you want?
Wide Receivers – 32nd ($10.3M)
Like running back, the Steelers are currently dishing out the least amount of money in the league to the wide receiver position (though they took a big dead money hit in the Antonio Brown deal). Outside of Donte Moncrief, nearly every other Steelers receiver is still on their rookie deal.
This will undoubtedly change once JuJu Smith-Schuster gets an extension, but for now, the Steelers aren’t paying a lot to their receiving core. Perhaps that’s not a good thing.
Tight End – 8th ($11.1M)
I was as surprised as you when I learned that Pittsburgh’s tight ends are making more than their entire group of wide receivers – even with Jesse James gone. However, there is a pretty simple reason for this: Vance McDonald is getting paid.
McDonald has a contract that totals $32M and pays him $6.5M this season. Vance ins’t the cheapest option at TE, but he’s more than necessary at this point.
Offensive Line – 10th ($39.5M)
Although the Steelers offensive line is widely regarded as one of the best and most consistent groups in the league, they are only the 10th highest paid at just under $39.5M for the unit. To compare, the Cowboys currently have $60.6M invested into their offensive line for the 2019 season.
Pittsburgh’s offensive line is getting up there in age, but there is no question they are worth the price tag that comes along with one of the best offensive line grouping in the NFL.