Steelers Salary Cap Situation after Alex Highsmith Deal

The new contract for Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Alex Highsmith will not have a significant impact on the team’s salary cap situation for the 2023 season.

Last week, Highsmith was inked to a four-year, $68 million contract extension that also tore up the remaining season of his rookie contract.

Highsmith had been set to earn $2.743 million in salary, along with a prorated portion of his signing bonus, in 2023 for a cap hit of $2.951 million. With the extension, his new salary cap hit for 2023 will be $4.418 million, an increase of just $1.467 million.

According to data from the NFLPA and Over the Cap, Highsmith’s new deal has a $16.21 million signing bonus, which prorates at $3.2 million annually over the course of the five contract seasons. To keep his cap hit in 2023 down, Highsmith agreed to a reduction of his salary this season to $1.01 million. That salary is fully guaranteed, giving him a total of $17.218 million in guaranteed money.

Over the course of the rest of the deal, his non-guaranteed salary increases to $10.733 million in 2024 and then steps up from there to $15.5 million in the final season of the deal in 2027.

When added to the rest of the Steelers’ offseason moves, the club has approximately $11.3 million in current salary cap space, but that figure is misleading. The team will still need to sign second-round pick Joey Porter Jr., add a full 16-man practice squad, and account for any players that start the season on injured reserve and give themselves a buffer to make in-season moves.

Functionally, the Steelers are approximately $6.4 million over the salary cap, when accounting for future expenses. 

The team’s cap management squad, including general manager Omar Khan and understudy Cole Marcoux, have plenty of options when it comes to creating more salary cap space. The most notable of those options would be restructuring the contract of outside linebacker T.J. Watt, which could save up to $12.6 million against the 2023 salary cap.

There are other ways the team can get under the cap, as well, as not all of the players currently in the top 51 contacts are assured of a roster spot come September.