Steelers

Steelers Rework Three Contracts, Free Up $9.5M In Cap Space

February 25, 2015

Update:

Jason La Canfora is reporting that the Steelers also restructured C Maurkice Pouncey‘s contract on Wednesday.

According to La Canfora, this brings the total cap savings for the Steelers to $9.5 million following these three moves.

Pouncey, 25, signed a six-year, $45.49 million contract that included a $13 million signing bonus with the Steelers back in June of last year.

He has base salaries of $1.75 million (2015), $3.5 million (2016), $7.5 million (2017), and $7 million (2018-2019).

Last year, Pouncey appeared in all 16 games for the Steelers and was rated as the No. 6 center in the league, according to Pro Football Focus.

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Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the Steelers also restructured the contract of S Mike Mitchell on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day news surfaced that the Steelers had reworked OT Marcus Gilbert‘s contract, so Pittsburgh has begun their normal routine of reworking deal to create cap space.

According to Bouchette, these two moves freed up $6.2 million in available cap space for the Steelers.

Neither Gilbert nor Mitchell took pay cuts in with these moves. Instead, the Steelers have prorated some of their salaries over the course of their contracts and gave the two of them signing bonuses.

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Field Yates of ESPN reports that the Steelers restructured the contract of OT Marcus Gilbert and in turn created $3.724 million of cap space for the 2015 season.

According to Yates, the Steelers converted Gilbert’s $3.5 million roster bonus and$1.15 million of his base salary into a signing bonus. This leaves his base salary for the 2015 season at $745,000.

Gilbert, 26, was a second-round pick of the Steelers back in 2011. Since then, he has appeared in 46 total games for Pittsburgh and played a total of 777 snaps last season.

The Steelers signed him to a five-year contract worth $30 million in August of last year.

Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 23 offensive tackle out of 84 qualifying players last season. He has solid ratings in both run and pass-blocking, which is really promising seeing as he put together an underwhelming 2013 season.