Antonio Brown restructures contract, frees up $4 million of cap space

[hawaiiansteel]

Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter:

Steelers WR Antonio Brown restructured his contract and freed up $4 million worth of cap space for Pittsburgh, per league source.

[URL]https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter[/URL]

[Jooser]

Antonio Brown restructures contract, frees up nearly $4 million in cap space
Posted by Mike Florio on March 7, 2014, 8:19 PM EST
Brown AP

As the Steelers continue their now-annual game of salary-cap limbo, their 2011 and 2013 MVP has done the team a favor.

The favor, of course, doesn’t require much of a sacrifice. In lieu of collecting a total of $6 million in game checks from September through December, Brown took most of it right now.

The restructuring, first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, creates $4 million in cap space. The actual number, assuming that the Steelers maximized the ability to convert salary to signing bonus by reducing Brown to the minimum base salary for his level of experience ($715,000), comes out to $3,963,750.

Under that approach, Brown gets $5.285 million now. The bonus money gets spread over the final four years of his current contract. At $1,321,250 per year, the signing bonus nudges a total of $3.96 million into future cap years.

Other candidates for a restructuring, a no-raise extension, or a release include linebacker LaMarr Woodley, cornerback Ike Taylor, and linebacker Lawrence Timmons.

more details

[sick beats]

IDK, so much of this is kicking the can down the road, where dead money will come into play. But at least with AB we know he should be good for many years to come, unlike Troy and Heath, where they won't be playing very much longer.

[legend of polamalu]

So were are we now with the salary cap? I have us at 8 Million under.

[Ernie]

So were are we now with the salary cap? I have us at 8 Million under.

I haven't done the math...but, if that is correct, we need to deal with Ike (cut in pay or bye bye) and go after a couple of FA's that can help us be contenders next year.

[Moonie]

I'm all for kicking the can - every year with Roethlisberger should be considered The Most Important Year. He's aging and getting beat up along with the rest of them.

[sick beats]

I'm all for kicking the can - every year with Roethlisberger should be considered The Most Important Year. He's aging and getting beat up along with the rest of them.

That's a good point.

[bostonsteeler]

I'm all for kicking the can - every year with Roethlisberger should be considered The Most Important Year. He's aging and getting beat up along with the rest of them.

Good point.

[Eddie Spaghetti]

cap may rise to 160 million by 2016

keep kicking that can Mr Rooney

[D Rock]

I'm all for kicking the can - every year with Roethlisberger should be considered The Most Important Year. He's aging and getting beat up along with the rest of them.

In addition to that...when he is finally gone and comes off the books, 20M a year is freed up and a rookie contract QB will be very cheap, allowing some of these other salaries to exist. This is probably actually a perfect scenario to kick money to future years, especially with the salary cap explosion expected as someone else mentioned.

[thor75]

Whats the dollar range needed to sign 7 rookies?