G.Stryker
www.SteelerNation.com
Cap Class is a series where I break down the cap to find the amounts associated with the roster, dead money, or future cost of players. Dollar amounts and cap cost may not be exciting, but they can be interesting when you look inside the numbers. I will place explanations inside of {braces}, so if you know how those numbers are found, you can skip over them. So grab your pencils and calculators, and let’s do some math!
So now that we’re nearly done discussing the merits of cutting vs not cutting James Harrison, it is time to look at his contract to see how the money affects the Steelers salary cap next season.
The Steelers signed Harrison to a very cap friendly deal this year. It was a 2 year deal worth $3.5M. It worked out to a $500k signing bonus, a $500k roster bonus (applied this season), and salaries of $1.2M in 2017 and $1.3M in 2018.
Since James was cut, his salary of $1.3M is off the books for 2018. The signing bonus of $500k is prorated to $250k per season for salary cap purposes {$500k signing bonus amount divided by the number of years under contract 2}.
So $250k in dead money is not all that much for cutting James Harrison. The Steelers are under $1M in dead money and are looking to carry over $5.3M in unused salary cap space in 2018.
