The Pittsburgh Steelers need to make roster improvements in 2023, but how much salary cap space will they be able to clear for free agency?
Running it back and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. Though the Pittsburgh Steelers seemed to be an improved team in the second half of the 2022 season, they can’t expect to make a leap to becoming Super Bowl contenders without significant upgrades to their roster.
Obviously, we can expect improvements from young players like Kenny Pickett, George Pickens, and DeMarvin Leal, but these improvements won’t be to be enough when it comes to finding playoff success for the first time in seven years.
Part of these improvements will hopefully come during the 2023 NFL Draft. In his first season as general manager, Omar Khan will have more top draft capital than the team has had to work with in decades. Prior to this point, however, the Steelers will have greater concerns.
Players like Cameron Sutton, Terrell Edmunds, and Larry Ogunjobi are unrestricted free agents who could choose to walk away during the 2023 free agency period unless offered a respectable contract. Meanwhile, the team could look to make upgrades with quality-free agents outside of the facility this year. But how much money will they have to work with?
Steelers are low on cap space… but not for long
As we sit here right now, the Pittsburgh Steelers have just over $1 million in cap space entering the 2023 offseason. This is obviously a minuscule amount of money and it’s even after it was confirmed that the NFL salary cap would jump up to $224.8 million in 2023 — a $16.6 million increase from 2022.
According to Over the Cap, the Steelers currently have an active cap spending of $222.2 million for 2023 with 59 players under contract. While this seems concerning, don’t hit the panic button just yet.
The good news is that this will not remain the case. Pittsburgh can pretty easily clear up enough money to sign back a few of their veterans and even make a splash or two in free agency. Recently, I used the salary cap calculator to predict how much spending money the Steelers could have very soon.
Cutting William Jackson to save over $12.1 million is the easiest decision Pittsburgh can make this offseason. Additionally, releasing Myles Jack, Ahkello Witherspoon, and Montravius Adams would give the Steelers a total of over $27.7 million in salary cap space to work with.
This is a fairly conservative estimate, as this doesn’t include cutting QB Mitch Trubisky and doesn’t take into account the restructures or extensions that could occur this offseason to push salary cap space into the future.
This would at least be enough money to start the process, however, as the Steelers could lock up Sutton and Edmunds while still landing a talented player in free agency.
Obviously, Omar Khan is expected to do much more to help his team financially this offseason, but this would be a good start. Right now, the Steelers don’t have hardly any salary cap space, but that is going to change very early in the offseason.