Why the Steelers can and should sign Richard Sherman

The Steelers would have enough cap for a presentable deal to Sherman

With around $8 million in new cap space for the Steelers to work with, a Richard Sherman signing would be possible. The Steelers could offer Sherman a 2 year $14 million contract. It would need to be structured with around $12 million of that being a signing bonus and around $1 million each season in base salary.

Sherman is already 32 years old, so a long-term contract wouldn’t be realistic for either side. He may win another Super Bowl and want to retire. The Steelers may start investing draft picks into the secondary as early as next season. This deal would make sense for Sherman because he would make $12 million and would be the final piece to a championship-caliber defense. It gives him a chance to make a very reasonable amount of money upfront while still competing for a title.

The cap implications for the Steelers with this deal aren’t very bad. The worst-case scenario would see the Steelers with $6 million in dead cap in 2022. That would be if Sherman decided to retire after 2021. However, Sherman recently stated that he wants to play for 2 more seasons. Pittsburgh would ultimately have a little more time to find two new starters to play around Cam Sutton as age would be the issue with Sherman and Haden past 2022.

This would help the Steelers immediately, but it isn’t something we should just jump into. We would have to tie ourselves to Haden and DeCastro for the long term from a cap perspective. However, Sherman could be the difference-maker for the Steelers come playoff time in 2021. We are in a win-now state of mind and swallowing a cap hit over the next couple of seasons to give Mike Tomlin every bit of help for Ben’s last ride may very well be the way to go.