A majority of the National Football League’s Player’s Association have voted to approve the new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Owners. The new CBA runs through 2031 ensuring another decade of NFL labor peace.
The deal also paves the way for an expanded regular season and playoffs, gives the players a slightly larger chunk of the NFL’s revenue pie, loosens marijuana testing requirements and penalties and curtails some of Roger Goodell’s discipline power.
- In the short term, it also simplifies the Steelers 2020 salary cap situation.
Prior to ratification of the CBA, the Pittsburgh Steelers were approximately 2 million dollars over the projected 2020 salary cap. The new CBA is expected to bump that up by about 6 million. That extra six million gives the Steelers a little breathing room, but still will not save them from having to make moves to operate.
Bud Dupree strip sacks Ryan Finley. Photo Credit: Matt Sunday, DK Pittsburgh Sports
Before the CBA was ratified, conventional wisdom held that the Steelers would probably need to cut 4 or 5 veterans to keep Bud Dupree, retain a few other free agents, sign their draft class and have some in-season breathing space.
It is likely that Kevin Colbert and Mike Tomlin will still make a few “We’ve decided to go in a different direction calls” over the next few days.
- But they’ll probably be able to make fewer calls because the new CBA will allow the Steelers greater flexibility to renegotiate contracts.
Renegotiating contracts to gain short-term salary cap space is a tactic which the Steelers once scorned, but has been a staple of Steelers policy for the last decade and represents one of the biggest differences between Art Rooney II’s leadership and that of his father Dan Rooney.
Who Is on the Chopping Block?
The players the Steelers are most likely to release remain (or perhaps traded) are still Ramon Foster, Anthony Chickillo and Mark Barron. However, the new CBA may make it easier for the Steelers to keep Vance McDonald.
- Per Ed Bouchette of The Athletic, Roosevelt Nix and Jordan Berry are also potential cap causalities.
One beneficiary could likely be Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster as the new CBA simplifies any potential contract extension.
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