Pittsburgh sports fans are unfortunately used to the Pirates baseball franchise and its penny-pinching ways. For years, fans have been begging Bob Nutting to open his wallet, but for the last decade, the Pirates have ranked at the bottom of the league in payroll while star players like Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Josh Bell and Starling Marte were pawned off for parts.
The Steelers don’t have that problem. Even in a salary-cap controlled environment, Pittsburgh is maxing out the credit cards.
This new chart from Over The Cap’s Troy tells a story about the 2026 Steelers.
NFL Team Cash and Salary Cap spending for 2026 heading into training camp, including dead money. Top left quadrant are the higher Cash over Cap spending teams. pic.twitter.com/c8MymwM0zt
— Troy_OTC (@TexansCap) July 17, 2026
The salary cap can be manipulated, but cash is cash. And on this matrix, the Steelers are near the top in both categories of spending. When Art Rooney II said he doesn’t care for the word rebuild, it’s easy to see why. He’s certainly not paying for a rebuild.
This is also a great picture of why they wanted — or even needed — Aaron Rodgers back for another year. They weren’t about to hand over the franchise to Will Howard and his zero career NFL snaps.
Why did Pittsburgh bring in Mike McCarthy instead of following its pattern of hiring young, relatively unknown head coaches to lead the team for decades to come? This spending matrix can help explain that. They wanted someone they trust to win now, and McCarthy had the best track record on the market.
They’ve minimized dead cap relative to much of the league and reinvested those savings into premium free agents, trades and contract extensions.
If you ask yourself why the organization believes in the current group so much, look no further than the price tag. Pittsburgh ranks third in the NFL in cash spending at $376,668,282 despite not carrying one of the league’s highest-paid quarterbacks. And the top 51 offseason roster allocation has them third in salary cap spending as well at $315,765,004.
While nearly every NFL team spends close to the salary cap, few commit this much cash without believing they have a roster capable of contending. Just look at the rest of the cash spending leaderboard. Last year’s playoff field is almost entirely toward the top of the chart.
Their position on the chart can change slightly. A T.J. Watt extension would dramatically shift the cap number down, for example. A Joey Porter Jr. extension would also bump the cash number up by way of a healthy signing bonus. But the point remains that they are paying to be an all-in team for the 2026 season.
For better or worse, the Steelers have put their money where their Super Bowl aspirations are.
Recommended for you