The Pittsburgh Steelers were over the cap just days before the new league year last month. And yet they still managed to sign three players from other teams as unrestricted free agents and traded for another, a combined cap hit of $8,953,833, which after displacement added a total of $6,318,833 to their salary cap in 2020.

That’s not bad at all considering they also squeezed in a franchise tag worth nearly $16 million, essentially fitting over $20 million in player salary through just those five players alone while beginning the process with negative cap space.

And yet they still managed to add a relatively ‘large’ free agent addition, at least by their standards, agreeing to a two-year, $12 million deal with tight end Eric Ebron, which comes with a first-year cap hit of just $3.5 million. Not only was the first-year affordability a surprise, so was, to the Steelers, the opportunity.

“I would say some things turned up that were a little unexpected that maybe we didn’t feel like we’d be able to do going in”, team president Art Rooney II said ahead of last night’s draft. “Signing Ebron, I think, was a little bit of a surprise. We didn’t expect him to be there at that point, so it was nice to get him”.

read more

https://steelersdepot.com/2020/04/ar...of-a-surprise/