Lolley's 10 Thoughts: Unprecedented free-agency season awaits

We're barreling toward an unprecedented year in NFL free agency, beginning a little over a week from now.

With salary cap space at a premium for more than half of the league because of the pandemic, there should continue to be a bevy of veteran players released over the next week as teams work to get under the cap.

Currently, the NFL has told teams to work under the idea that the cap will be $183 million. That could go higher based on what happens with negotiations between the league and NFLPA, but it looks like $183 million will now be the floor. Based on that number, 15 teams have $10 million or less to spend in free agency right now. Of those, nine teams are still over the cap. The Steelers are at $182 million in spending on their top 51 players right now. But with a $4.9 million rollover of unspent cap space from last season, they have about $6 million in space -- give or take.

What this means is that the teams that still need to get under the cap aren't going to be buyers. And the teams within striking distance of the cap are going to have to be prudent buyers.

The big-ticket free agents, however, are still going to change teams and get paid. But the middle class might get left out in the cold this year.

That's where a team such as the Steelers can be a winner in this strange year. The Steelers will be patient in free agency -- as they typically are -- and wait for the smoke to clear from the initial wave. Heck, they might even wait for the second wave to be completed.

But after that point, there should still be a healthy number of veteran players available that will be willing to take a cheap deal with a chance to become a free agent again next season when the cap goes back up significantly again.

Expect to see a lot of players sign one-year contracts that used to be "prove-it deals," even if they really have nothing to prove. They just need a place to play.

• The Cowboys just gave Dak Prescott a 4-year, $160-million contract extension Monday. They were one of the teams that had plenty of cap space.

Notice the use of the past tense there. Dallas had $21.78 million in cap space available prior to that deal. No matter how the new contract is structured, the Cowboys are now among the teams that don't have available cap space.

But that's the going rate for a veteran quarterback.

• According to Peter King and Ben Roethlisberger's agent, Ryan Tollner, though he wasn't named, Roethlisberger's contract will void three days after the Super Bowl next season.

So, there's really no need to wonder if 2021 will be Roethlisberger's final season. It will.

When Roethlisberger's contract voids, he'll essentially become a free agent. But he's not going anywhere else. This will be his final NFL season.

• It's always interesting to see how some players treat free agency differently.

JuJu Smith-Schuster, for example, is playing things up on social media like he'd be willing to stay in Pittsburgh if the Steelers would just make him an offer.

Mike Hilton is taking a different tact:

That's "9 days ...." until he becomes a free agent. That doesn't mean Hilton hates the Steelers or was unhappy in Pittsburgh. It just means that he realizes that the team can't give him the contract that he will get elsewhere. And, at 27, he knows this will be his last chance to cash in and make life-changing money.

At this point, Hilton has made $4.95 million in his NFL career, which sounds like a lot -- OK, it is a lot to most of us -- but isn't as great when you consider $3.26 million of that was earned last season.

In his first five NFL seasons, he made a combined $1.692 million, or an average of $338,000 a year. That's still a nice living. But it pales in comparison to the signing bonus he'll get in another week or so that will eclipse the total of all of the money he's made previously in his career.

Loyalty is one thing, but when somebody is handing you a check for $10 million or more in signing bonus and it's more money than you've ever seen in your life, you'd be a fool not to take it.

And you'd certainly be excited to see that day arrive.

• Bob Labriola of Steelers.com made some headlines Monday with a line he had in a recent piece on the Steelers wide receiver position in which he said Chase Claypool's "diva quotient increased" as the season wore on.

Claypool has done some questionable things on social media and said some things that just didn't need to be said, such as saying the Browns would get clapped by the Chiefs in the playoffs after they had beaten the Steelers. He also was part of the whole Smith-Schuster logo dancing campaign, serving as the videographer for those sessions.

Does that make Claypool a diva? 

Not necessarily. But it does show, at least in some cases, immaturity. And the Steelers are concerned that Claypool, like Smith-Schuster, is intent on being a social media star. But Claypool learned directly at the feet of Smith-Schuster. They lived in the same apartment building. They hung out together a lot during season.

Perhaps if the Steelers had made sure Claypool was in the same apartment building as James Washington things would be a little different. Washington doesn't have a diva-like bone in his body.

It's not a bad thing for a player to have some personality and want to make money off the field.  But you do have to find a balance. And it can't hurt the product on the field.

You can bet that if Mike Tomlin hasn't already had that conversation with Claypool, he will before the start of next season.

• Hilton is a guy, by the way, who has been released by two other teams after going undrafted. He was cut by the Jaguars and then the Patriots before the Steelers signed him for nothing and gave him an opportunity.

He's got no reason to have be anything by grateful to the franchise. And he certainly is. But not to the point where he's going to turn down millions on what will likely be his one -- and only -- opportunity to cash in.

• Free agency is going to change quickly over the next week as players are added and subtracted. But if you're looking for a nice, quick list of everyone available, ESPN's Mike Clay does good work.

In fact, he tweeted out a free agency cheat sheet just this week:

You'll notice that Smith-Schuster is ranked third among wide receivers, James Conner is fourth among running backs, Bud Dupree is fifth among edge rushers and Alejandro Villanueva is third among offensive tackles available. Hilton is 10th among cornerbacks -- Cameron Sutton is 22nd -- but if Hilton could play outside, he would be more valuable.

• In the upper right hand corner of those rankings, Clay has each team ranked based on what their roster looks like without their unrestricted free agents.

The Steelers have the ninth-best roster, according to those rankings:

Now, free agency will obviously change some of those rankings. So will the draft. Teams will go up and down based on who they add and subtract.

But this general malaise in Pittsburgh that the Steelers can't compete in 2021 is unfounded. There is still talent on this roster.

• Given that they are bringing Roethlisberger back for one last year, some might think the Steelers are in a win-now mode. But they always are. They try to win every year.

But there is something that will be unique about this year. Given the number of college players that opted out, there will be more high-upside players available this year with very little in actual game tape or experience.

In previous years, the Steelers might have been more willing to take a chance on those kind of players. Dupree was that kind of draft pick. So, too, was T.J. Watt to a certain degree. He really had just one year of experience at outside linebacker after moving from tight end. But given the current state of their roster -- where depth is missing at a lot of spots -- the Steelers might be more inclined to play it safe this year.

Kevin Colbert said last summer the team would be more inclined to take players who had played games in 2020 as opposed to those who had opted out because they would have more recent game film of them.

“If there are two players that are close or equal, we’ll take the one that has played most recently,” Colbert said.

Here's the thing, of the offensive tackles -- an obvious need -- in this year's draft, Penei Sewell, Rashawn Slater, Jalen Mayfield, Walker Little and Spencer Brown all opted out. Dillon Radunz of North Dakota State played just one game because his team is playing in the spring. That's six of the top dozen or so tackles in this draft.

Now, that doesn't mean the Steelers won't take any of those players, but it certainly will make things interesting at a position of need for the team.

• Even with the $10.34 million dead money cap hit for Roethlisberger in 2022, the Steelers still have $148 million in cap space available next season.

That will continue to go down as the team makes moves, but it's still a ridiculous amount of cap space for a team that isn't going to use it on a bunch of free agents. But it will be more than enough if the Steelers want to make a move to acquire a veteran starting quarterback either in free agency or via a trade. The guess here remains that they'll got with the rookie draft pick option. But given their cap space, anything is on the table.

And given the movement of quarterbacks we've seen in the past couple of years, it's certainly a possibility the Steelers' 2022 starting quarterback is already in the NFL.