Why the Steelers were forced to restructure T.J. Watt’s contract

The Pittsburgh Steelers backed themselves into a corner financially in 2022. Here’s why they had to restructure T.J. Watt’s contract. 

On Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Steelers made a move that didn’t exactly come out of the blue: they restricted T.J. Watt’s contract in an effort to free up additional salary cap space for the 2022 season. This was a move that many expected to see happen before the start of the season.

Before the restructure, the Steelers sat at roughly $1.93 million in salary cap space for the upcoming season, according to Over the Cap. However, this isn’t enough to enter the season with — especially considering that Omar Khan needed to get a few more players signed to the practice squad.

In most years, the Steelers typically like to enter the season with roughly $8-9 million in salary cap space. They do this in case the team was to suffer some injuries during the season and they need to go out and sign or trade for players. Though the team typically never uses all of this, their approach is that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Steelers freed up $6.75 million for the 2022 season by restructuring Watt’s contract. This will give them the flexibility they typically desire for the upcoming season. However, it doesn’t come without a slight cost.

How does restructure affect Steelers in the future?

This money has to go somewhere. You can’t just create millions of dollars worth of salary cap space out of thin air without consequence. To make this restructure work and free up $6.75 million for the 2022 season, the Steelers had to take this onto the final three years of Watt’s current five-year contract, in which it appears the money will be evenly dispersed.

What that means is that Watt’s cap number will be higher than originally planned in those years. Instead of counting $27 million against the cap in 2023 and $28 million in 2024 and 2025, these numbers will increase to close to $30 million in 2023 and a little over $30 million during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

I know that this seems like a lot of money for a non-quarterback, and it is. However, this isn’t going to get the Steelers into nearly as much trouble as you might think. Watt got his deal relatively early, and the salary cap will continue to rise each year, which means that there could be several edge defenders making more money by that point than Watt.

In the grand scheme of things, tacking on a few million extra to Watt’s already large cap number isn’t going to break the bank. The good news is that Pittsburgh will still have a quarterback on a rookie contract, and they should have ample flexibility when it comes to spending big in free agency.

Restructuring T.J. Watt’s contract really was a necessary move to free up much-needed salary cap space for the 2022 season, and it’s one that we predicted. The Steelers are simply doing what they’ve always done when it comes to handling contracts, so don’t consider this anything out of the norm.