By Rich Tandler
Pro Football Talk is reporting that the Pittsburgh Steelers have restructured the contract of cornerback Ike Taylor. They have converted about $4.9 million of his 2012 salary into signing bonus and it saved them some $3.28 million in cap space by pushing it into future years.
PFT earlier reported that the Steelers have restructured the contracts of linebackers LaMarr Woodley and Lawrence Timmons. Those moves will push a total of about $11.7 million of cap charges into future years.
The Steelers were about $25 million over the cap coming into the offseason.
As those who follow the Redskins well know, this approach will catch up with you eventually. It’s fine for a couple of years until all of those restructure charges start to pile up and you have a few players with massive cap numbers eating up all of your space. And if players are released prior to the end of their contracts, the dead cap can be a killer.
There are a couple of things working in the Steelers’ favor in these moves. Of the three players only Taylor is over 30 so it’s likely that Timmons and Woodley will play to the end of their contacts. And there will be a major increase in the cap when the new TV contracts kick in so that inflation will lessen the impact of the increased cap numbers down the road.
Still, the restructuring game can be a dangerous one. Vinny Cerrato is now a radio host in part because he didn’t play it very well.
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