The Pittsburgh Steelers have officially entered the 2023 regular season after cutting their roster down to 53 players and being in the process of signing members to their 16-man practice squad. As these events play out, all of the signings now fall on the Steelers 2023 salary cap as the Steelers are no longer only charged for the top 51 salaries.

Although the Steelers have plenty of cap space to make their various moves including the signing of the practice squad, there is also the need to carry money into the season for added expenses. For this reason, and the Steelers are likely to do some shifting around of the numbers in order to create more cap space for 2023.

On Thursday, it was reported by ESPN’s Field Yates the Steelers have restructured the contract of Gunner Olszewski.

Players with restructured deals in recent days with their updated cap charges for 2023:

Jets CB Bryce Hall: $1.097M (down from $2.82M)
Giants CB Darnay Holmes: $1.216M (down from $2.94M)
Steelers WR Gunner Olszewski: $2.026M (down from $2.618M)
Rams OL Kevin Dotson: $2.25M…

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 31, 2023

Based on the numbers reported by Yates, the Steelers would save approximately $591,500 in 2023. The exact amount is uncertain at this time based on how Yates may have rounded the numbers. His report of Olszewski‘s $2.618 million cap number is actually rounded up from $2,617,500 as reported by overthecap.com. So the reported number of $2.206 million may also be one which was slightly rounded.

So exactly what did the Steelers do to free up this money?

There are a couple options on the table. First, the possibility of adding void years to the contract it’s something they could have done. To reach the numbers quoted by Yates, the Steelers would’ve had to of converted $888k of Olszewski‘s $2 million base salary into a signing bonus and add two additional void years to the end of his contract. Using void years is not something the Steelers have done outside of the cap-reduced season of 2021.

Another option is the Steelers simply may have signed a Olszewski to an extension where he was given a base salary over those two years. If this were the case, the exact amounts of his pay over those years would eventually be reported.

A third option that may have occurred with Olszewski‘s contract is simply taking less pay for the season in order for the Steelers to keep him on the 53-man roster. Yet another option would have been to convert some of Olszewski‘s contract into a different type of bonus where some of, if not all of it, was of the “not likely to be earned” variety and therefore would not count on this year‘s salary cap.

Based on the numbers, the most likely scenario is that Olszewski had $888k of his salary converted into a signing bonus and two more years added to his contract, whether through void years or an extension. While the other options are possible, this is the most likely scenario where the numbers work out.

UPDATE: According to spotrac.com, they have Olszewski taking a $591k salary reduction from $2 million to $1.409 million. There is no explanation in their details as to why the numbers changed.

Regardless, the Pittsburgh Steelers have managed to save more than half a million dollars towards the 2023 salary cap. As other numbers come in, particularly the contract of Desmond king, a better idea of the Steelers current salary cap situation will become clear.