In addition to signing Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Heath Miller to a two-year extension on Wednesday, the team also extended safety Troy Polamalu by two years as well.
Now that we know the parameters of the recent extension give to Miller that cleared $3,333,334 of cap space for 2014, it’s not too hard to speculate what the extension for Polamalu will look like.
Polamalu is currently scheduled to earn a base salary of $8.25 million in 2014 and currently carries a cap charge of $10,887,500. The Steelers could have decide to turn as much as $7 million of that $8.25 million base salary into a signing bonus as part of a two-year extension and assuming no new monies were given as a bonus, as appears to have been the case with Miller, his new cap charge in 2014 would be $6,220,833.33, which would clear $4,666,666.67 in 2014 cap space for the Steelers.
The sticking point, however, would be the base salaries in 2015 and 2016 for Polamalu and how much of that is fully guaranteed. In the case of Miller, his base salaries in 2015 and $2016 are both $4 million and one would think that the 2015 base would be fully guaranteed being as he appears as though he didn’t receive any additional signing bonus as part of the extension.
Giving Polamalu base salaries of $6 million in both 2015 and 2016 would make sense with the 2015 amount fully guaranteed or at least partially guaranteed. If indeed that were to be the case, his cap charges in both of those years would be $8,333,333.33 if indeed $7 million of his 2014 base were to be turned into a signing bonus.
Please remember, the Polamalu numbers above are mere speculation and not official.
UPDATE:
Steelers gave S Troy Polamalu a three-year, $20 million extension that saves Pittsburgh $4.5 million against the salary cap this year.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 5, 2014
