Pittsburgh Steelers will have to wait a while to sign draft picks
By Matt Shetler
As teams around the NFL begin to sign their most recent draft picks, there is one team that won’t be doing so any time soon: the Pittsburgh Steelers.
After watching AFC North rivals Cincinnati and Baltimore make quick work of signing their picks, don’t expect the Steelers to do so any time in the near future.
May 3, 2013; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Steelers second round draft pick running back Le
Pittsburgh did sign its fourth-round pick, safety Shamarko Thomas out of Syracuse, but it could be some time before they begin to come to terms with the rest of their draft class.
The Steelers would prefer not to wait. They just don’t have much of a choice.
As it’s been all offseason, the problem for the Steelers is lack of salary-cap space. Pittsburgh has less than $2 million in cap room right now, and it would take roughly $5 million to sign all nine draft picks.
That will change in a couple weeks as they will receive an additional $5.5 million in cap space because guard Willie Colon was designated as a June 1 cut.
With that being the case, the Steelers will likely be among the last teams in the league to come to terms with their draft class.
But at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter when they sign them, as long as they get all of them in on time.
Having said that though, expect the Steelers to be done adding players to their roster as they will need every penny for their draft class.