In less than a week, the Steelers will open their 2020 season. In less than just a couple of days, the NFL season will begin.
So much for those who said this couldn't happen or that the league was wasting its time.
As we're also seeing, the league not only feels that the 2020 season is going to take place, but that it's going to be fruitful, as well. The doom and gloom predictions of the offseason might still play out, but they sure seem a less lot likely now that the NFL made it through an entire six-week training camp process without major incident.
In fact, the biggest coronavirus-related news of the entire training camp was a bevy of false positive tests a couple of weeks ago that included several Steelers. If the worst news was a group of false positive tests, that's not too bad.
As a whole, the league must be feeling pretty good. The contract extensions handed out in the past couple of weeks speak volumes when it comes to what teams think the salary cap will be in 2021.
When the floor of $175 million 2021 cap floor was negotiated in July by the NFL and NFLPA, many looked at that figure as set in stone. The Steelers didn't help dispel that. Kevin Colbert said that figure was one the team had to keep in mind when it came making any moves, including contract extensions with current players. Art Rooney II then essentially said the same thing last week.
That all apparently is now out the window with the four-year extension signed by Cam Heyward that averages $16.4 million per year.
"There was a lot of doubt in my head for a good bit," Heyward said Monday. "There was a lot of uncertainty with the pandemic. We're not dealing with normal circumstances."
The Steelers freed up just under $4 million in salary cap space last Friday by converting a portion of David DeCastro's 2020 salary into signing bonus. But that also pushed DeCastro's 2021 salary to just under $14.3 million.
That opened the door for the four-year, $65.6-million contract extension signed by Heyward Sunday night.
That Heyward deal will give the Steelers eight players with cap hits of more than $10 million in 2021 -- Ben Roethlisberger, Heyward, DeCastro, Joe Haden, Steven Nelson, Stephon Tuitt, Maurkice Pouncey and T.J. Watt. Watt is currently on the books at just over $10 million after the Steelers picked up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.
Those seven players will count more than $130 million against the team's 2021 salary cap, with Roethlisberger eating up a whopping $41.25 million of that.
Based on that, it doesn't appear the Steelers are all that concerned about the salary cap coming in at $175 million. Otherwise, they would have only $30 to $40 million with which to build the rest of their roster.
Considering that only Nelson, Tuitt and Watt are players under 30 on that list, this is a team that isn't interested in starting a rebuilding plan. They are, once again, all in on winning in 2020. And they will be again in 2021.
• With Heyward's deal now done, the Steelers could look into signing another potential 2021 free agent before the start of the regular season and the team-imposed deadline of getting new deals done.
It wouldn't be surprising to see the Steelers try to extend guard Matt Feiler, offensive tackle Zach Banner or cornerbacks Mike Hilton or Cam Sutton before they open the season next Monday.
If I had to guess which was the most likely, it would be Feiler. He's heading into his third season as a full-time starter, and the Steelers don't want to go into the 2021 season chasing a new starter at guard.
Banner would be a consideration, as well. Both he and starting left tackle Alejandro Villanueva are scheduled to be unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. But if they make an attempt to sign Banner and not Villanueva, it could cause some hard feelings. The same goes with Hilton and Sutton.
Signing one now and not the other means you're probably bidding goodbye to the other at the end of the season. And the team needs all four of those players competing at a high level.
These are the little dynamics that take place during contract negotiations. And they're a big reason why the team stopped negotiating deals once the season starts.
• The Steelers released their first official depth chart on Monday and it included little intrigue.
As expected, both Banner and Chuks Okorafor are listed at right tackle and as the backup at left tackle. The same goes at tight end with Vance McDonald and Eric Ebron.
Here's the thing, based on what we've seen and heard at training camp, all four of those guys are going to play -- a lot.
Look for the Steelers to be one of the more creative teams in the league when it comes to the use of six-man offensive lines and how they use them. And the tight ends will play a role in that, as well.
That said, I do expect the team will go with Okorafor as the "starter" at right tackle, but Banner will play, maybe as much as 20 snaps per game.
• The start of the season is just around the corner. But it got real for the Steelers this week as they returned to the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex for their first practice there outdoors Monday -- they had practiced indoors there twice during camp.
It was a bit of a return to normalcy.
"I think we have a good team but we won't see until Week 1," Heyward said. "We're kind of in the college rules. You've got to compete against each other. We kind of had to ramp up the process. We didn't have a couple of months to really beat each other up. Now we're here. I think everybody's excited to hit somebody other than their teammates. We've been at each other's throats the entire camp. We're going to let the offense off the hook a little bit."
The defense is loaded. And the addition of safety Sean Davis on Sunday gives the team a viable backup with plenty of starting experience at both safety spots. Curtis Riley, who lost his spot on the 53-man roster to Davis, had a good camp, but he was still learning the defense. Davis already knows it.
It could be tough for the defense to reach the 36 turnovers it forced in 2019, but given the pass rushers on the roster and what the offense should provide in terms of more leads, the team record of 55 sacks is in serious jeopardy.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to see this team put up 60 or more sacks.
• It should tell you a lot about this roster that the Steelers felt comfortable cutting the likes of Ryan Switzer, Dan McCullers, Deon Cain, Trey Edmunds, Kerrith Whyte and Devlin Hodges. All of those guys were contributors in 2019 and, in some cases, even before that.
This is, as Heyward said, a good football team.
And, outside of what appears to be a minor calf issue -- nothing season-ending -- for DeCastro, it made it through training camp healthy.
The Steelers are clearly no worse than the third-best team in the AFC. And the gap between them and the Chiefs and Ravens isn't nearly as large as it was before this process started and those teams suffered some opt-outs and roster losses.