Breaking: After contracts holding back $72.9 million over four years, the Steelers have finally landed with a star.

The Pittsburgh Steelers can rest easy knowing that every important starter is still bound to their contract until the 2024 season, whereas the majority of other clubs in the league are expected to lose valuable starters (or even a star player) in free agency. This is encouraging for a squad hoping to challenge and advance in the upcoming campaign.

The bad news is Pittsburgh finds itself in a bit of a financial bind. Pressley Harvin, Chukwuma Okorafor, and Mitch Trubisky were released in the first wave of roster changes, but the Steelers are still sitting on a salary cap hole.

Thankfully, Omar Khan can escape this one with a couple more straightforward roster choices. They will have some breathing room as a result, and they will also have more salary cap capacity to sign a few players this summer.

But the Steelers have three contracts that will take up a significant portion of the team’s cap space in 2024. Pittsburgh’s inability to make significant off-season spending purchases is being hindered by these three cap hits.Inkah Fitzpatrick: $72.9 million over four years
As of this now, Minkah Fitzpatrick is the richest safety in the NFL thanks to a four-year, $72.988 million contract that he signed during the 2022 offseason. This happened after spending fewer than three full seasons with the Steelers and winning two First-Team All-Pro selections.

Fitzpatrick is currently earning $18.25 million a year on average, which is a substantial sum in and of itself. However, Minkah’s cap number suddenly soars to over $21.3 million in each of the next three seasons and even reaches $24.4 million in 2026 thanks to previous general manager Kevin Colbert backloading his contract to free up extra salary space in 2022 and 2023.

For a safety, even for a three-time All-Pro like Fitzpatrick, this number is just too high. Fitzpatrick won’t get close to the enormous $14.5 million base salary he is expected to earn if he remains as injured in 2024 as he did in the previous season.

Fitzpatrick has a ridiculously high cap number this year, so the Steelers will probably need to rework his contract a second time (they had to do this in March 2023 to make room for cap space). Fitzpatrick currently has a $21.355 million cap number, which is 8.7% of the team’s total cap space. Pittsburgh is currently being held back by this number in terms of its free agency options, and I anticipate that they will take action this offseason.