4 scenarios Steelers could explore to boost their 2022 salary cap space

Scenario 4: Steelers cut Banner and Schobert, make Roethlisberger a post-June 1st cut

You might be asking yourself ‘how can the Steelers cut Ben Roethlisberger when he officially retired from football?’ It’s an interesting predicament they have here. While Big Ben is done with football, his contract is not yet off the books.

Because the team added voidable years onto Ben’s contract in an effort to keep a competitive team for one more season, the front office essentially has two options: they can absorb all $10.34 million of the dead money hit from Roethlisberger’s voidable-year restructure in 2022, or they can spread this hit out and kick the can further down the road.

If they decide on the latter (which I think is a real possibility), the Steelers would make Ben’s contract a post-June 1st cut. By doing this, the team would take a $2.585 million dead cap hit this year instead of the $10.34 million hit — saving an additional $7.755 million this year.

If the Steelers made Ben’s voidable-year contract a post-June 1st cut in addition to releasing Schobert and Banner, they could save roughly $20.59 million this year. that would give them $58.3 million to spend in free agency and to retain their own players. The problem with doing this is that the team would have to take the remainder of the cap hit in the 2023 offseason.

The Steelers have some very important financial decisions ahead of them, and I’m hoping Kevin Colbert and Omar Khan can work their magic again this offseason. The good news is that there are numerous ways for Pittsburgh to free up even more cap space than they already have to work with in 2022.