Steelers restructure Woodley, free up 6.5mil

[RuthlessBurgher]

Re: Steelers restructure Woodley, free up 6.5mil

Doesn't restructuring a contract just postpone the inevitable? Sure, we got relief this year but we've increased Woodley's hit by 1.64 million on the remaining years of the contract. There comes a time when you just have to pay the piper and reduce peoples contracts or cut them.

I'm by no means an expert at figuring out the salary cap but logic just tells me this isn't necessarily a good thing and will come back to bite us in the arse.

Restructuring does delay the inevitable. It's a delicate balance, and the Steelers typically do a pretty good job.

Down the road, Woodley, Ben, Timmons and others will have some huge cap hits. The Steelers better hope that league revenues continue to increase, which will minimize the impact of these restructurings down the road.

It's fine when you restructure guys that you expect to be around for years, converting base salary or roster bonus to signing bonus (there is no increase or decrease in total dollars, but both sides like it because the player gets that money up front while the team gets to defer some of the cap hit to future years). It's bad when do it and then have to cut a guy in the next year or two (guys like Hines or Farrior or Hampton won't get restructured in this manner...they'll actually have to accept a pay cut to stay). Guys like Ben and Woodley and Timmons will be here for the long haul. If you keep restructuring their deals, then the cap hit once they reach the final year of their contract will be huge, but that will force you to go back to the drawing board to work out a new long term deal at that point.

[pittpete]

Re: Steelers restructure Woodley, free up 6.5mil

It's fine when you restructure guys that you expect to be around for years, converting base salary or roster bonus to signing bonus

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