Due to a trade on Saturday in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers, their total rookie pool number increased another $2.6 million plus. With nine draft picks now to get under contract, the Steelers total rookie pool number should come in just shy of $30 million.
As far as cap hit totals for the nine players selected, that should now total just over $5.6 million when the dust clears and all of the contracts are signed.
Thanks in part to displacement, however, the Steelers do not need $5.6 million in cap space to accommodate their nine selections and 15 undrafted free agents. In fact, they should only need roughly $1.6 million to accommodate the bonus money proration of the rookies.
The Steelers currently have less than $500,000 in salary cap space available to them until June and general manager Kevin Colbert indicated that would be enough until then and that no more restructures need to be done.
All of the Steelers players drafted after round three should get their deals done fairly quickly. First round draft pick Jarvis Jones and second round draft pick Le\’Veon Bell, however, will remained unsigned until at least June, when the team will then have $5 million plus more in cap room to work with.
