The Steelers on Tuesday will release linebacker LaMarr Woodley with a June 1 designation.
By doing so, the Steelers will receive $8 million in salary cap savings after June 1 with $5.59 million of his current deal being pushed into 2015.
So the Steelers will have to continue carrying his $13.59 million cap number until June 1.
Why do it now? It allows Woodley the opportunity to find a job elsewhere while also not giving him a chance to be injured during the offseason at an OTA or mini-camp.
Quite simply, it was the right thing to do.
When Woodley's money comes off the books, the Steelers will have around $11 million in cap space.
The team also worked out a deal with cornerback Ike Taylor to lower his $7 million base salary for 2014, which will be additional savings. Taylor took a $4.25 million pay cut to stay in Pittsburgh and will now earn $2.75 million.
Coupled with the moves they made last week, the Steelers now have around $8 million in cap space.
The Steelers made some initial inquiries with three potential free agent cornerbacks, speaking to the agents of Tennessee's Alterraun Verner, Miami's Nolan Carroll and Carolina's Captain Munnerlyn.
Carroll and Munnerlyn were two guys who were already on my radar and seem much more realistic than Verner, who was a 2013 Pro Bowl player.
The Steelers do have some ties to Verner, however. Offensive line coach Mike Munchak was his head coach in Tennessee, while Steelers defensive backs coach held the same position at UCLA when Verner was a player there.
Still, it's unlikely Verner is going to take a lesser deal from Pittsburgh because of that, especially when he has a number of suitors.
7 comments:
You can say what you want about the Steelers, but they usually do the right thing for their players.
They also do the right thing from a business perspective. Sometimes the two go together.
Woodley will get a chance with a new club and hopefully he can stay healthy. He still has some good football in him and I hope he does well. I wish him a huge contract and a fantastic season next year, because I also hope we get a third round compensatory pick out of him.
I understand now why Keenan Lewis was allowed to leave. He didn't want to stay and they let him go. Simple as that.
He came with his best friend Mike Wallace and he left with him too.
The players interest to leave overwhelmed the club's interest in keeping him. It is better to build good will with the remaining players than to keep a player around who will be unhappy about staying.
It is also better to release Woodley now than wait until June. It is good for his sake and builds good will with the other players.
Nice gestures are why the Steelers are the class of the NFL and why many players are glad to play for them.
And why they keep winning.
They get the good will back in return from players wanting to play for them, sometimes at a discount.
Mr. Rogers might have been a nice guy and a great friend to children, but he never went hungry either and built up a nice business for himself. The Rooney's are no dummies. They have used kindness as the currency to build a fantastic business.
Mrs. Isaac Redman
I just want to hug kyle after that post
fine. but i'm not traveling for it.
Woolley was cut...he is not leaving as a FA. We will not get a compensatory pick for him.
Right, Woodley was released, so the Steelers will get nothing in return if he is signed elsewhere.
with steelers signing ike to 1 year deal, unlikely they bring in FA cornerback, right?
I think they could still bring in a free agent CB,that and D-Line are the biggest holes right now.If we can get a good CB in free agency we can draft a Safety to groom for next year to play along with Shark (high draft pick), drafting a CB does not get us someone ready to start this year, which we need. I would rather see ike as a nickle and dime CB this year teaching a new, young vet the ropes to play along side Allen. This also lets us go after a monster reciever in rd 1, I think the steelers want a playmaker with that pick, it could be a CB in rd 1 if we do not get a CB free agent.
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