Hr1: Salary Cap Snapshot

0:00We see you. Your calendar's color coded. Your outfit for tomorrow is already laid out. You have everything in top-aware labeled in your fridge. You buy in bulk. You meal prep. You know what you're doing in 2027. You're a planner. And we're here to say you don't have to do it all. S&T Bank makes banking easy. From our friendly team to our online and mobile solutions, we do more so you can do less. Stop by your local branch. Visit STBank.com or call 800-325-2265 S&T Bank, member FDIC. It is the drive here on a Wednesday on the Steelers Audio Network, West Euler, Matt Williams, and with you for the next two hours, Matt, as the sun is shining. It's getting nice out there.

1:05It's getting a little bit nicer out there, which means it'll probably snow tomorrow. That's how things work here this time of year. Yeah, but it can be toasty in Arizona for us. We're going to get some sun. Real toasty for us in Arizona. Yeah, a couple housekeeping reminders right off the jump here. First, we will not have a show tomorrow. Once in a while, we have to have an in-service day. We put a little maintenance day for the ride. Yeah, in-service day. I'm doing a parent-teacher conference tomorrow with my dad. With your dad, yeah. Wrigley Field. During the come-zone opener. So yes, no show tomorrow is I'm kind of helping my pops, checks up off his bucket list of taking his sun-to-opening day at Wrigley Field. My dad is from Chicago. I just hope your flights all work out. Yeah, you and me both. I said to him, maybe we should cancel those and just drive out tonight. We'll see. But yeah, that is that's going on tomorrow. My dad, I've shared the stories before, but he's been in Pittsburgh for 39 years. He's been converted to the to the Steelers and the Penguins, but he still loves or the yeah, to the Steelers and the Penguins, but he still loves the Bulls and loves the Chicago Cubs. That's his favorite

2:08team in the world since they won. Yeah, since they won. Cried like a baby in 2016 when they won the World Series finally after 108 years or whatever it was. And so him and I, that is unbelievably cool to go that long without a World Series, right? I mean, not cool for all the Chicago Cubs fans that went their whole life without seeing their team won a championship, which are many, many, but many, many, anyone that had to be a part of that had to be high on the best World Series ever. Unbelievable. Yeah. And so we've tried in the past, but you know, he was a violinist and had a crazy schedule. I worked in sports media and had a had a crazy schedule nine to five. Yeah, we had plans to do this in 2020 to go to the Cubs home opener in March of 2020 or maybe it was like early April 2020, but then COVID hit in February and the MLBCs and got moved to the bubble. So after, after literally probably like a decade plus year of try and my dad and I are finally getting to Riggly, it'll be my first time opening day tomorrow. That's awesome. But we will be back on Friday with a show to close down the week. And then Saturday, yeah, then we're off Saturday. We're off there is owner for the owner's meetings. We'll have a bonus show for you

3:10on Sunday and the front half of the week next week will be doing all of our shows from sunny Phoenix Matt where it's going to be 90 some degrees. Maybe I can't wait. So I can't wait to go. It'll be the blast. It's a much different environment though than the combine folks. Like there's not things on can be walking by and we grab them. You know, I mean, now every coach, it's not really as well represented. It's the owner all 32 coaches. Omar, I'll be there. I'm sure. But like the higher ups and some people that are even are non football people in the organization. But oh, no, it's not like the running back coaches won't be walking around or scouts or, you know, media people literally the entire football world is an Indianapolis for a week. This isn't nearly to that extent. But like chef girl be there. You know, the guys like that and maybe we can grab somebody like that and you know, maybe foulers around or somebody like along those lines. But it's not like every fantasy dude and you're someone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'll grab him.

4:10You know, right. Yeah. But it is a cool environment. And I assume we'll broadcast at the hotel. The owners are staying at. We don't stay there. But it's uncomfortably nice. I mean, it really is. I mean, they set us up in the lawn. You know, like the pool or the pond. The pond will be good for you. You know, that's definitely the case. It's like if it's an outdoor concert venue, the billionaire owners are underneath the pavilion. We're out. We're out in the lawn. In the mind. Yeah. Show. But we're out in the lawn. We're seeing the same band. Yeah. I love it. But you'll like it. It's kind of the one of the last few things I've got on my checklist that I haven't done by, you know, decade of NFL media. The owner's party is unbelievable. I am looking forward to do. I need to bring a nice, nice outfit for that. Don't I? I don't put a tie on but I definitely slacks, button up jacket. Cool. Nice shoes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I meant to ask you that at some point. Some glad I thought about it here. But like you'll see Andy Reed in a Hawaiian shirt. But you're not Andy Reed. But I'm not Andy Reed. Yes. Certainly can't go mustache like Andy Reed can. That's for sure. But like I want

5:12if the bar got a drink and Venus and Serena were in the line next to me getting a drink. Like this is awesome. That is that is pretty cool. Yeah. Hey, can you teach me forehand back it? How do you serve like that? That's unbelievable. No, I'm looking forward to it. It'll be a fun experience. The weather's going to be great. And Matt, I'm sure you and I, despite, you know, being there for a work trip, working hard. I'm sure we'll find a way to have a little bit of fun. I bet you and I as well. That's just some good grub in that neck of the woods too. I am very excited for for some of that, that Arizona, that like what South Western corridor of the country. A little tequila in the sun. And maybe a little moss tequila as well. Matt, some news of the day and some pre-draft visits to get us started here. It's not a ton of news of the day. No, it's getting slow. Joe Flacco back with Cincinnati. Did you hear what he had to say though? Pretty candidate candidate. No, but I think it's perfect. I think he's still playing pretty well. So does he? Because he said, believe me, I wish I was the guy somewhere else.

6:13And I think teams are dumb for not having me be that guy. Not being one of those guys to sign somewhere. Yeah, it pisses me off a little bit. But at the same time, I'm very happy to be here and quote, I think it makes it's awesome for Cincinnati. Yeah. Yeah. I deal back up. Burrows been hard to keep on the field a little bit. But like, why wouldn't you go back to there? Why wouldn't like the cold spring back while Jones is healing or whatever. Sure. I think there's a lot of those examples. And I wonder, listen, I realized with his age, that's a big kind of outlier. Yeah. But I mean, he was actually retired for a while. Yeah. I wonder though if there's a scenario where someone's quarterback gets hurt in training camp and all the sudden they're like, Hey, bangles will give you a fifth round pick, a sixth round pick. Well, that's how he became bang on the first place. Kind of. You know, right. You know, right. But yeah, Joe Flacco back. That's a great backup. That's a great, absolutely. And just a great, you know, second set of eyes for Joe Burrow on the sideline and all those different things that we talk about. The backup quarterbacks can provide for the starter. But I just found with him

7:14so candidly saying like, yeah, I wish I was going to be the guy somewhere else. Maybe that's not still entirely off the table, depending on how training camp and preseason shake out. He's got to be the last of Matt Williamson recruiting assistant VHS. He's probably the last guy in the NFL that's still had a VHS tape. Yeah. I would say because digital was starting to come in. Yeah. Like, even can't, I don't think cam had a VHS tape. Like, people might not even know what DV sport is, but it's, it's all over. If you, if you, if you look for it, it's all over the sidelines. All over the sidelines. And they were created actually by a, a libo dude that I know, and they were just starting to incorporate into like colleges and things of that nature, you know, where you could download all that, you know, the digital tape instead of having we'd have roomed this size full of VHS tapes. And I'd go up to the front and I'd every been, every morning, I'd get a bin of VHS tapes like this, watch them all sort them. These are the unsolicited tapes. These are the ones we asked for. Woodland Hills versus Penn Hills. Yeah, put that over there. Right. And then you don't throw them away. We got tape over them next year.

8:20That's a good piece of lore from the past. Like, I still remember my parents arguing. My dad loves sign felled. My mom loved ER. Okay. And I still remember a couple times as a kid, like the, Chris, did you write over the ER episode sign fell? I mean, what are you doing? Yeah. Oh, man, I think there are some divorces that happened in those days for those. I'm 35. I'm about to line a demarcation, I think, in that conversation. If you're younger than me, that probably goes way over your head. If you're older than me, you're picking up what I'm putting down. So I'll, I'll tell you one, one quick story about this. This is Matt, the dork, because the weird world of Matt was, I think we, we, you know, we kept the tape a year after they got sent to us or whatever. And then our video guy was like, these are pretty rancid. Just get rid of them. But I kept them all. He's a pretty rancid. I kept them all and I bought used DVRs and set them up all over my house. So I recorded college football, everything that was on every weekend. Sure. Just for draft stuff that I would do that in my free time when I came home from pit.

9:21In the evenings when you were having a glass of bourbon and needed something to watch. I would watch, you know, this time of year, I'd pull out A&M versus the TV tapes. And Excel spreadsheets were new. I would take all my notes, I'd cut and paste stuff from all over the, all over the league. I printed out like these draft documents that were like the beast, sent them to the Steelers. Yeah. I mean, like I said, a couple of times I'd write back like, this is really impressive, young man. You know, yeah, things like that. I mean, I remember even the year, especially the year I was with at Akron, because I was a bachelor basically. I mean, I went this tiny, really terrible apartment. And when I got home from doing Akron stuff, I watched draft tape, reruns over and over and over on all these VHS tapes that have my pit labels on. Yeah. And I remember I was all proud of myself. And I took my draft document, JD Brookhard, our head coach at Akron. And he's like, this is unbelievable. You should definitely be an NFL scout. He's like, but what if you to put this much time into our recruits? Like,

10:24like I was looking at like a hobby. You know, like, I'm here. Coach, I'm here. Like 90 hours a week. You know, but he's like, yeah, but this could have been high school tape. Like, yeah, maybe I should have showed you. That's good. Okay, funny, funny nerd story for you on my end. 2009 was my freshman year at WVU. Okay. And that was kind of right in the middle of making the change of everything from tape to digital. I'm sure. Yeah. So I started interning for the football team, the athletic department as a freshman, low man on the totem pole. And one of my first assignments was all the all the game tapes from the last five years, put them into the deck, you know, rip them into the into digital into the computer. Okay. Yeah. Go through and mark them. Here's a here's a 37 yard touchdown run against Rutgers by Avon Coburn. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So when the producers go back and they're looking to put together, you know, Avon Coburn's getting honored for the WVU Hall of Fame or whatever. They don't have to watch

11:26everything. They miss their ways. Get on the WVU Hall of Fame. They can just go into the system, type in zero way and their pop up, you know, 300 highlights. Yeah, that technology did not exist. It was just starting to become a thing. My freshman year. And so again, low man on the totem pole, like my first week's interning with the football team in the athletic department. It's like, here's all these game tapes. Here's Amos Zereway and Avon Coburn. Yeah. Man Jones and Chris Henry and all these guys go through and categorize them all basically. Every play 17 yard catch, nine yard touchdown run. They gave me all these different keywords to use that would pop in the system. And I spent basically my whole first semester, like I think my internship was like 12 hours a week or something like that. You know what I mean? Maybe two, six hour days, something like that. categorizing those old tapes. And one of those tapes was December first, 2007, 13, nine. And I kindly told my bosses, I will not be categorizing this. I cannot rewatch it. I cannot rewatch this. I was there. Okay. I still remember every detail pain stakingly from

12:30two years ago. I will not ever. It's it's Jack came going back to training camp. It's Jack came going back to training camp. That's probably the only WVU game in my life that I've never rewatched. Like I don't have any of them. I'm not going to. Yeah. And I was just like, I was very upfront. I was like, I'm just not doing that one. Yeah. I'll do all these other, you know, 200 tapes. You have for me, but you need to find a different intern to do that one. Not because I'm lazy. I've done 200. It's just I'm fine. My eyeballs are still too deep. I don't need to throw salt into those ones. So I don't know exactly how this went, but like when I was at Pitt, Ben McAdoo, you know, it was one of our offensive GA's one time, Scott McCurley, the Steelers, current linebacker coach, the GA, those guys, I mean, this was 2000ish. As soon as the game ended and they got off the plane, they went straight to the facility and had to cut up all the pay for the upcoming opponent. So when the coaches came in the next morning, it's already. So when I mean cut up, they had to watch everything and be like, this is three receivers, click the white three receiver box. This is motion.

13:35And then, you know, our head coach, be like, I want to see every third and long. Here's a nickel package. Yeah. Now it's two seconds. You can sort for third and longs or blitz or whatever. You put him one or two keywords and yeah, they had this huge spreadsheet. Okay. I can check this box on this play. This one on this play. And I know it'll be, I'm sure they're wrong once in a while. They watch like five tapes. Sure. Right after we get off the plane from Miami or whatever, and got their head beat in and got in at like one a.m. And they've been up for 18 hours. Oh, yeah. They just go straight there. Oh, yeah. They find something to eat and they just cut up tape with at least four games because the coaches are coming in the morning and they're going to drive in for the next game. Matt, you and I are both in a pretty, uh, if we in Pulse Scott aside, at some point, I want to ask about it. That would be fun. You and I are in a pretty good position now. We, uh, we've got very good gigs now, I think, is the right way to say it. But we had to, uh, we had to do some grind and to get here. That's for sure. Yes. No, no doubt. Everybody did. But I mean, the next generation will be like, boy, what's the matter at heart? You know, like, we don't even know how, what's difficult compared, you know, with that, they thought that was cutting edge back. You know what it was. They thought

14:39that was great back then. Like, we can go the next day and watch tape. No, I thought VHS tapes were great. That's better than the John Stallworth film that Bill Nunn would get and just not send to the next team. You know, like, they would be one real to real tape from, especially those, like, small, historically black colleges. Yeah. Like, okay, your job is to watch Stallworth and then send them to the Bengals. I'm not saying anybody to sell our tape. I'm just going to draft them. Bill Nunn's special, baby. I'm not sending any tape. And also, I'm not telling those guys, I'm going to the dance in the Recall tonight. I'm burning this one and I'm drafting 82. You know, these big boys can move. That's all these one of my favorite stories that wouldn't, wouldn't Wolf tell that and Pursuda used to tell that of. Gotta love it. The, the art of scouting and tape procurement and all those things that have changed so much over the decades. Fun little story time there with someone. Yeah, didn't expect that. Some news of the day. That's that time of year for it. Yeah, it is. It is. It was Wednesday of Ravens week. We wouldn't be talking about all the football tape. I guess flakos would brought that

15:42up. But flakos did bring that up. I remember watching his Audubon High School tape, you know, and I don't think there's anyone to lead that I actually watched VHS tape still love. Colleys Campbell, still a free agent. But I didn't definitely not watch his tape. But I mean, you might be the only other one in the league that had probably true. Campbell VHS tape, you know, like Amy Lee was our punner at pit. And he lasted for like 18 years, you know, so at least overlapped with him. Joe was a true freshman my last year at pit. So he actually were pit panthers together. You know, that's pretty cool. Love, love here in those stories. We'll have more of those little pop up throughout the offseason. I'm sure when we return, let's talk some pre draft visits. Let's talk some where the Steelers stand from a salary cap standpoint as well. All that and more as we continue to move and shake on this Wednesday. What Shuler Matt Williamson. It is the drive Steelers Nation Radio on the Steelers Audio Network. What's up NFL fans? The NFL draft is finally here. And while you might not know who your team is drafting this year, you do know your watch parties number one pick. Bud Light, the clean crisp

16:46taste that has all the scouts talking. Guess that's why it's been the groups go to draft beer season after season. Be sure to order around for the table before your teams on the clock. Bud Light, easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly and heiser push Bud Light beer St. Louis Missouri. You are tuned to the drive on your 24 seven home of the black and gold Steelers Nation Radio. Back on the drive here on this Wednesday in Matt. This is something that I think we did maybe about a week ago, but just kind of combing over the names that these Steelers have brought to Pittsburgh for pre draft visits. Yeah. So just a preface this doesn't mean that they love them. There's a lot of times that these guys get crossed off the list after this, you know, or boy,

17:50I really have unchecked boxes. My scouting report is still has holes in it that I have not been able to fill. I want to bring this young man in and sit down with him. Sometimes it's a smokescreen. Sometimes they love him, you know, and so don't look too much into these 30 visits, like they're definitely going to take all these to, you know, it's not really how it works. And quarterbacks, it's never bad to bring a quarterback because you're going to play against them or, you know, learn all you can against, you know, absolutely. And so there are and this is also as we typically like to preface. These are all via reports. Yes. This isn't officially released by the team. But they're not reports from, you know, Pickensburg, Sixburg on Twitter. They're viable national and local reporters that have reported these things. And I'm pretty sure that the league all will know everyone's 30 visits, you know, like the Steelers will know the official ones that the Bears had

18:53in the ring. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is hard to find the information. The NFL is like a publish it. Right. Which makes sense for now. Why would they write this regard? Yeah. Two quarterbacks have been on pre-draft visits so far. Carson Beck, we mentioned last week. And then Cole Peyton, one of your guys, he's definitely interesting. He's definitely interesting. He's got a ton of upside. He's got athleticism that you want. I'm going to need some polish without a doubt, but he's he's a very, very intriguing name in that quarterback conversation. He's big, strong, fast, athletic enough that whoever drafts him might have a goal line or a taste some hill package right off the bat, depending who their starter is, you know, like so he can get his feet wet that way. Yes. Trio wide receivers still from last week. No new news this week, but it was Jeff Caldwell from Cincinnati, Kendrick Law from Kentucky and Denzel Boston from Washington. So those are the same trio that we discussed last year. Yeah. And Boston's not like the others.

19:54I mean, Boston, you're thinking about in the first round. Absolutely. Yeah. The Cincinnati kid Caldwell was a ridiculous tester. And he went from a borderline draftable guy to maybe a fifth rounder. You know, I can see why you want to get your hands on him though. Yes, absolutely. He's one of those guys. I think you'd want to talk to a little bit more and learn a little bit more about one tight end, Khalil Denkins out of Penn State that we discussed that last week. That's a local visit, right? Yes. They don't count folks. Yeah. That's not one of the 30 only called 30 visits because you get 30 of them. Correct. Yeah. And yes, those do not count as part of the local ones do not count towards your 30 one offensive tackle. We discussed last week. Markel Bell out of Miami. Yeah, he was one of the early ones. Uh, one tackle. He's among us. He's six nine. One guard, Kaylyn Rutledge out of Georgia Tech. He's another. It makes sense. Like we often pigeonhole Pregnon or the A&M kid. Bistonis. Yeah. Bistonis. Bistonis. I think Caldwell's, or that's the name. Yeah. The Georgia Tech guy here is also a pure guard day two dude that would

20:58be right in the mix for the left guard competition right away. I mean, he's not he would not be a throwaway pick at all. I mean, like you're looking at him like a starter. Yes. You need a good combine too. Uh, side note. That's why it's on top of my head. Yeah. Um, I think we've talked about this enough, but not enough, but I had a really good conversation. I mentioned Marcus Mosher the other day. Yeah. Uh, we recorded locked on Dynasty this morning and we were just talking about McCarthy Dorne's time with the Cowboys and, uh, talking a little bit more about Hoffman and all that. And basically what the reason the Cowboys didn't bring Hoffman back is because this staff just wants mashers like they drafted the kid out of, uh, first round guard that's like three or 40 pounds. And Hoffman's 300 on a good day. He can kind of struggle to keep weighed on. He's he's nasty. He's not humongous. It's it's not their style, but it just reiterated that McCarthy's going to be looking for athletes on the offensive line. He's not going to be looking for old school fat guys, you know what I

22:00mean? Like whoever they add on the O line is going to be able to move. That makes a lot of sense. Yes. Uh, three corners, Matt, uh, Ephesians, Prysock out of Washington, Chris Johnson out of San Diego State. I believe we mentioned both of those last week. And then Ticario Davis out of Washington. So a what a trio of, uh, uh, yeah, it's from Washington so far. So Davis is really odd because he is a true freaky size speed dude. I mean, he's over 63. I mean, he's probably taller than Porter blazed at the 40 super long. Like if P Carol was still in the league, sign him up, you know, I mean, he kind of wreak woolen those type of dudes. Then, um, so I can see why he'd want to kick the tires on him. Johnson doesn't add up to me though. Unless I'm misreading the room or they just love him because he's good. To me, he's not worth the 21st pick.

23:03And he's got about zero chance to be there for the 53rd pick. And he's pretty much just an outside corner, kind of the prototypical size speed dude. I just don't know a world where one of their first two picks would be on an outside corner. You know what I mean? Like they have two starters. Obviously, no, right. Yeah. I just don't quite get that one unless there's some medical they just wanted to get there some other reason. I don't know. Right. I get what you're saying in terms of the, I don't know how he could become a sealer, boundary corner, outside corners, feeling like it's, I mean, he would make and see left in that department. Right. I mean, you would think in that neighborhood where he's going to be a top 40 pick. That's a starter. And you got two starters and Samuel. You know, right. I just don't know where that would work. Interesting one to keep an eye on. Yeah. One defensive lineman James Thompson Jr. from Illinois. Don't know much about him. Yeah. There's like two or three names on there that are late round picks. I don't know much about, including the Kentucky receiver, which I should know. Yeah. Your kids aren't going to be happy with that one. You about to have two wild cats in the

24:04house, Matthew. True. Uh, threat. And then finally, a trio of linebackers. One that we might classify as a safety. Uh, that being Kyle Lewis, of course, from pit. So he is a local visit, too, does account towards 30. So two local visits so far. One Penn stator. Uh, one pit panther. Also Matt, Jacob Rodriguez from Texas tech. Yeah. That one stood out too. That's in Arkansas. We discussed briefly yesterday. I think we did talk a little bit about Perkins. I like seeing Jacob Rodriguez on that list. Yeah. I just wonder if it's like if we get the second round to see way too good to pass up. Um, I often reference the, the podcast I do with peacock and I thought he had a really good point about Rodriguez and said, so we do a mailbag every Thursday, you know, just like, you know, our Twitter stuff. Yeah. And one of the questions was come up with three or four names that could be surprised. First round picks that no one's mocking. And my co host said Rodriguez. Yeah. And I'm like, as soon as he said, I'm like, yes. Like what don't we like about him? He makes every play. He plays a position that we've

25:09considered a non position of value, like, like running back or tight end. But again, if you change that lens of looking for impact players, right? He defines the word impact. That's all he does is impact games all the time. And then he blew up the combine and, you know, the big knock on him going into the combine, which probably there was some stereotypical thinking is, I don't know if he's athletic enough or then he blows up the combine. He makes every play and he sideline to sideline. And the way Brian mentioned it was he might be linebacker too. He might be. And if he goes like 20th the lions or whatever, like, should we be shocked after styles off the board? And I went, no, because he's going to be good at football. He's like, I'm there's no way he's a bust. Now I think it, I'm not taking him to 21. He could be another one of those no man's land between 21 and 53, though, too. But maybe there's a look at him. Like if he gets to 53, we just have to take him. Oh, he's our number two linebacker. That would be, I could certainly understand that

26:11logic in the case where it's not towards the top of your priority list. But just get good football players. Yeah, he's safe. You're right. You mentioned Detroit lions. A lot of people thought they were crazy when they took Gibbs. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of people thought they were crazy when they took a Campbell Campbell's same draft. Right. Yeah. Turned out pretty well. Turned out great, right. Good football players. They impact the game immediately. Yeah. Matt just piggybacking off of that. So that's that's what we know as of now in terms of the credible reports of of only two local visits and then the rest of the pre-draft visits there. Oh, real quick on Boston. At least the list that I saw recently, I looked yesterday. His is scheduled. So he hasn't been here yet. The other ones have reportedly been here already, I think. I think Boston is should be determined when he'll get here. He just has pro day like a couple days ago or something, too. That would that would make sense then. And that can be a sticky thing too. Like some of these dudes that maybe 25 teams want you to come in on a visit. So I mean, if you have some kind of medical or like, I bet like McCoy from Tennessee is going to be a lot of people. A lot of people

27:14just want to get their hands on them or they got ball of outfield questions or whatever. You can't physically get the 20 cities or 25 cities between now and the draft. No. And no, by the way, you'd like to lift weights and run in. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, well season 100%. Steelers now, Matt, a good kind of a peace written today on SteelersNow.com by our buddy, Alan Saunders, who's been on the show before of the kind of salary cap snap shot of where the Steelers stand. Yeah, I just did a general Google search for Steelers salary cap and this popped up like, oh, I'm just stealing this. This is really well done. It was it's good research, good math, good due diligence by Alan. And he's one of those. Yeah, he's good. He's one of those journalists that does his due diligence for sure. This does not account. He's he's clear to set to make known. This does not account for the signings of Brock Hoffman and Travis Homer, which by the way, they're going to break the back, but still they're going to count and they're going to probably make the team and right. And by the way, both of those became official last night after you and I got

28:15off the air. We no longer have to say reports. That's on source. Yeah. But at the same time, those guys, yeah, they'll affect the salary cap, but they're not going to massively tip the scales is, you know, it's not like either of them got multi year, you know, huge money. Right. I'm sure Homer's a league minimum one and Hoffman's probably a little better than that. A little better than that. Um, but he does break this down almost down to the penny. And those guys would matter, you know, yes, there's the way he broke this down. I thought was very readable and digestible. So the NFL salary cap is going to be a little over $301 million. It's estimated for that. That's just insane. It's gone up like a hundred millions in COVID. It's just insane. And the Miami dolphins have 175 million of dead cats, right? So a little over 300 million, let's say, just for easy conversation purposes, the Steelers are going to roll over just under 17 million from their capital last year, right? 16.9 million. So the Steelers are looking at a

29:16salary cap of about $318 million. Yeah. So they get to more to play within everybody else. I mean, the rollover stuff's a real advantage. If you look right now at their top 51 salaries, okay, 53 man roster, count for Hoffman and Homer, fit top 51 salaries right now is just a shade short of $280 million. So it's 279 and change. That combined with a little over $12 million in dead money leaves the season low by NFL steam. Yeah, especially for a team that has been winning division titles, right? Right, right. Is not a bottom of the barrel, you know, like compared to the Miami, as you mentioned, they had 175 million in dead. It's crazy. Yeah. And a lot of that's Minka crazy. And wait for us to vote theme. Some of the dead numbers for the Eagles in the coming years are going to be nuts. They're not AJ Brown and Lane Johnson. You got to pay the Piper from those contracts. Finally. So a little over 12 million in dead money for the Steelers, all of that math added together means the Steelers currently have approximately 26 and a half

30:18million dollars of salary cap space to play with. And if you just go to over the cap.com or whatever, that's near the top. It's I would say it's 8th or 9th or something like that. Most, but they also don't have a quarterback. They do not, you know, and they also still have to sign their draft picks. Yes, as is everybody. But yeah, but and it, but and so you might look at that and you say, okay, say they say they give 13 million to Aaron Rogers, 14 million to Aaron Rogers, the rest goes to the to the rookies. Okay, then you're still a little, they're still a little left over yet. Still a little left over. But remember, they're still moves they could make. They could still release Malik Harrison and free up some space. You could still restructure some Alex Heismith types. Yeah, Alan is a pretty good list there of all the guys you can restructure. If you need be, you mentioned Harrison is a potential cap casualty. I've been bringing that up forever. I don't know if it'll happen or not. But I think it saves you about another four. Maybe there's waiting for the draft to see if they land or linebacker or not. Sure, you know, then that's, that's one of the advantages to taking, you know, if you're sitting there in the fourth round, should we take a linebacker or safety? Well, maybe we should take the linebacker because

31:21we also get four million in cap space by cutting Harrison to, you know, there's a lot of balancing. Now, there's certainly no more good at that stuff, you know, right? That's up his alley. Could could like some of the restructure stuff's interesting. Yeah, TJ Watt could be restructured, save a little over $20 million, DK Metcalf, about 17 and a half. And then there's a pretty significant drop off after those two, as you would imagine. But even Ramsey, about seven million, Highsmith, about six and a half million, Friar Mooth, about five million, releasing Malik Harrison would save you close to five. You could also restructure Jalen Warren or DeShawn Elliott to free up about two million bucks and a little bit here and there. Yeah. So now there's music. There's levers you can pull. That's all in the balance of how it works with your bigger picture for, for next year in the coming years and where exactly you want those hits to have impact and what you want to kick down the road versus what you want to eat your vegetables with right now, as you like to say. And if you do go to like over the cap.com or one of those, you can look at future years. The Steelers have almost as much cap space as anyone a year

32:25from now. However, in this one influence this year's cap that much, but I would imagine Porter, maybe Benton, you know, some of these extensions are going to really eat into next year's cap. Yes. Yeah. And that's still coming down the line as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably more of a summer thing. That was a nice little salary cap snapshot of where we're at right now. Make sure, uh, checking that out if you want all because there's really good breakdowns and how they could restructure and release and how to fix the future and all those things. Uh, everybody, Alan Saunders on Steelers now.com. If you want to dig into that a little bit more. I mean, by no means. So I think this is coming, but hypothetical. If they wanted to trade for AJ Brown, you could. I mean, hey, TJ, I need your restructure and blow it. You know, you can make things work, but then you don't have this kind of freedom next year at this time. Right. Right. Your freedom down the line is, yeah, you're not nearly as liquid. You know, you're as my, as my dad would like to say in financial advice, you're Robin Peter to pay Paul. Mm hmm. Yeah. A lot which works out a lot of

33:27times in this league. Well, especially because the cap goes up every year. But at the same time, too, you don't want to rob Peter too much. Mm hmm. Because eventually you're going to have to repay Peter as well. Not just Paul. Sure. Sure. Like that's where Miami's fine. That's right. That's what the dolphins are finding out right now. The hard way. Let's get to our last break here of the first hour. Matt Williamson walked in here today when we were, when we were doing our highly extensive pre-production meeting. Matt walked in and said, I've got a new draft crush. I said, don't tell me anymore. We'll talk about this show. Who is Matt's new draft crush? It's not a new name or anything. It's just one of them fifth round pick. It's just, I might put him in the, would you take him at 21 if the genie comes out of the bottle. He was not in that category. I think he is now. Maxie in nature. Yeah. Twitter loves when I take him the first round every mark. This is going to be again, that, that meme of the boyfriend distracted. Boyfriend looking over his shoulder at the other girl while it Matt now is holding it. Max his hand, looking over his shoulder at somebody else. Who is that? Max is still my alignment crush,

34:30but this is not an alignment. We'll find out. Matt's the weird world of Matt Williamson. This is his Valentine's Day. Who does he have a crush on? We'll find out when we return. It's the drive Steelers Nation radio on the Steelers audio network. What's up NFL fans? The NFL draft is finally here. And while you might not know who your team is drafting this year, you do know your watch party's number one pick. Bud Light, the clean crisp taste that has all the scouts talking. Guess that's why it's been the groups go to draft beer season after season. Be sure to order around for the table before your teams on the clock. Bud Light, easy to drink, easy to enjoy. Enjoy responsibly and hiser bush Bud Light beer St. Louis Missouri. You're tuned to the drive on your 24-7 home of the Black & Gold Steelers Nation radio. Down the home stretch here of the first hour of the drive. And we got to find out who

35:49Matt's new draft crush is Matt Williamson. All right. So is it somebody whose name we've mentioned more than just like a lot. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a potential first round, dude. Everybody knows who he is. Offense defense. Offense. I just think that people I think the internet Twitter or all the mocks are vastly underestimating KC Concept CEO. That was okay. My particularly for the Steelers. Okay. My first guest was going to be one of the Utah tackles offense alignment. They're both intriguing. But then KC Concept CEO was yeah. I may or may not have also listened to one of your recent podcasts where you were talking him up a little bit. Okay. When you set offense, that came to mind. Just a less. Tell me more. 48. Two, three, four days digging in, looking at different opinions, watching a little more tape of

36:50them. There's only like one thing I can say about them that I don't like. And it's not size. He's not this little slot guy. He's the pool was combined numbers. I think he was just under six feet and over 190 pounds. I mean, like a magic number for wide receivers is over 195. He's 196. And I think he's right around six foot 196. Yeah. He's not this little slot jitterbug guy. He's bigger than that. He has too many drops. I mean, there's no way around that. His drop rate is high. Now, this is a side note, but we'll talk about this a lot. Drops, especially in the league to me, are one of the most overrated stats out there. Yeah. Everyone sees them. Oh, he dropped the ball. But did you drop it right in your hands? Or did you get one thing on it? It was a little outside of your head. And someone has to make the judge. Is that a drop or not? You know, and this is not the defense concept, you know, because his story is a little different.

37:53But usually that like, if I asked you like, who led the league in drops over the last like eight to 10 years? Guys that are targeted a lot. It's like digs. It's Edelman. It's Welker. It's a guy's to get a lot of targets, usually in the teeth of the defense that are getting smacked in the face by yeah, by big people. You know, I mean, like high volume and targets are earned. I very much believe that. You don't target guys 10 times by accident. Sure. So highly targeted guys have more drops. So drops in general to me don't bother me. But his drop rate is too high. I mean, so that I'm start with the negatives. And a lot of them though are concentration drops. So good after the catch. It's running before he catches the ball or a catch he should make stuff. You can coach stuff. You can coach or maybe focus a little bit more because it's not like he struggles catching the football. His highlight reel catches are whoa, you know, like any a strong hands and he makes tough catches.

38:56These drops a couple of easy ones. And two of them seer were surefire touchdowns. So people makes it looks that much worse. But boy is he dynamic. I mean, he's already a great punt returner, which happens to be a stealer need. And it's one more reason I like him. But he's so good after the catch. He moves really, really dynamically. You know, out of his breaks, he's really tough and physical. They'll I've never met him. But I love his personality and play demeanor on the field. He is very physical. He's well known to be like this wide receiver historian. Like where he'll pull up Steve large intake or something and study his releases, you know, like really digs in deep for different wide receiver, you know, study habits. And I think this is super cool too. Like he has a stuttering problem. Okay. Okay. And so he doesn't I'm not going to go the podium. I'm

40:00not going to do interviews. Instead, he has gone out of his way to let everyone know he has a stuttering problem. And all you folks that have stuttering problems shouldn't shy away from it. I'm your poster boy for it. I'm going to sit here in front of, yeah, I'm going to sit here at the combine in front of a million reporters. And I might stutter once in a while. And I don't care. Who cares? That's just who I am. Right. Right. Right. I have a good message. Yeah. Right. Right. Like so that kind of stuff. I love. He mates love him. He will block. And stealer specifically. Like I like Boston a lot. He's a little redundant to the two they have. In terms of just size movement. Not as dynamic. Like he's not going to win a race against conception. He's not going to have the wiggle conception. And I still think pitmans probably best in the slot. Lemon to me might be slot only or slot mostly. I think conception is definitely big enough to be inside or out. He's definitely the most wiggly is dynamic stealer receiver the second

41:05they would take him. And the more I watch him. So for sears calm. Mike and Max and I all do a top five. And I've gone at every position. I've done every one so far. But I'm about to do round two. Like we start I did quarterbacks even before the combine. So I'm about to I'll probably do quarterbacks tonight. The second round. And frankly, the first round's fine. But it's just I make a lot of changes. I mean, so much. I mean, that was probably should two. That was six weeks ago. As you know, I've talked about before as new information becomes available. You change your opinion. Yeah. I mean, it's on the end of the sand and ignore it. I'm watching free agents and stuff. You know, like I'm not a draft guy. You're round. I'm not the enbrugler. But I might have put him at wide receiver two. And that's a generic list. I mean, this is not for the stealers. It's just a top five safeties guards, whatever after take after take to me is still one. Most years, he wouldn't be one, but he is super duper safe. I think there's a zero percent chance. He's there at 21. But that list we put together of would you trade 21 for player X? I'm this close. And that's

42:13why I've taken me a day or two to bring it up to put in conception on that list. And most people look at him like, maybe he's bored around first. He's the sixth receiver. You're thinking about giving up 21. You're taking you're thinking long and hard about giving up 21. I'm thinking he's different than the other guys. And I have less questions. And he's kind of exactly what the doctor ordered. And I'm still hooked on O line the first round. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't take a receiver. So, okay, a couple follow ups there then. You address the, would you trade pick 21 for him? You're thinking about it. I'm strongly putting these, he's knocking on the door again. We'll run that exercise back twice more before we get to the end of April. So maybe we'll have, we'll revisit that conversation again. NFL comparison and his combined scouting profile put together by Lance's airline. Lance is good work. Is Doug Baldwin? Kind of agree. Baldwin was an underwhelming, like when he walked in the door,

43:18not look like Randy Moss, you know, but like he had a, he had a little bit of that Smith and the Jigba saddle movements always open. How did I get beat by that guy again? Yeah. Feel to him. And I think Concepcion has that. And you know me with comparisons, like, you don't want to be like, yeah, he's Randy Moss, but faster and bigger, you know, like he's talking right. Yeah, it's more accurate and better leader. You know, but Concepcion to me is more wiggle and more juiced than Baldwin ever did. Okay. I mean, I, I, he definitely wins a foot race. I think he's a little more agile. He's a better athlete. Baldwin was a really a player. Like if he turned into Baldwin, he'd be thrilled. I mean, Baldwin's really a player. Maybe this is a little too early for you to answer this, but I got to ask if I gave you like a, would you rather type scenario? I guess it is a Wednesday. Would you rather Wednesday? Concepcion at 21 and another offensive lineman not named Venga or Max in round two. Or would

44:27you rather give me Venga or Max at pick 21? And I'll take my chance on the wide receiver in round two. That's why I'm so strong still on O line in round one. Just because I think the, I love the day two receivers. And he's not going to be one of them. I love the day two receivers. And I might take two of them, you know, take one the second and third round. Yeah, we've talked about that. Yeah, yeah, where I like some alignment, but you're going to be keeping your fingers crossed. Boy, Pregnant sitting there at 45 and he's going to make it. Sure. Make it. There's just way fewer targets. And there are some tackles that are round one only, like Max or Proctor or somebody like that or Faunou that could be a guard or a tackle, you know, and I mean, like at least like, it might be a tackle one day. So the better value is always going to be the O line and then the receiver. But I wonder. And it nights out throwing, run a

45:29mock just for fun. Just for fun. And frankly, you throw it on Twitter and half you'll call you an idiot. Yeah, but it does drum up conversation. That Twitter is a very reasonable place. Of course. I mean, there's nobody. Everybody's got a good head on their shoulders. And they all really know the game well. Yeah. And then you just love how there's no anonymous accounts. It's always people with a real picture in the real name who are calling you an idiot. But the more mocks we do for the Steelers with their current amount of picks, you get to the fourth round real quick or even the end of the third and be like, I don't really need a running back our tight end, but I'm going to take one anyway. I really need a quarterback, but I'll take one anyway. I wonder if you could finagle. If you could trade back from 21. And I do this too often on mocks too, because you need someone to tangle and trading backs, always a better move. But if you could trade back from 21 to 25 and trade up from 53, I think it is to 38 and get both. That'd be great. You know what I mean?

46:33Okay, all of a sudden, I don't have five picks on day two. I have two or three. But I ended up with Concepcion and an alignment. Yeah. Great. You know what I mean? Great. Or something like that. And like took two big swings. I'd be willing to give up a pick to do something like that. Yeah. And that would be, I might give up quite a few. I mean, give up a third or a fourth, my second to move up heavy in the second round, because Concepcion sitting there at 34, something like that. You know what I mean? Interesting. No future picks are going anywhere. Yeah. No, we've already tabled. We've already tabled any conversation that starts there. Interesting. Because you picked extra picks by moving back is my point in round one. It's a well thought out thought to add to the think tank there of our ongoing draft conversation. I'm sure we will definitely revisit that at some point, but we got to get to break. But I urge people to check out Concepcion if you haven't. Yeah. Just YouTube or whatever too. He's he's got a lot more juice than then maybe we've given credit for.

47:38I like it. I love it. I want some more of it. He goes over the middle. I mean, he is not a finesse player. And he does like the teeth of that defense. Yeah. He's out of your mouth. Hour in the books. Another hour to go. We'll get to your tweets in hour number two. We'll talk most improved teams so far out of free agency. I've also got a fun little best of the west to tee up for everybody at some point as we're doing some things here on a Wednesday. West Jr. Matt Williamson halfway home on the drive. Another hour to go. Steelers nation radio on the Steelers audio network. We see you. Your calendar's color coded. Your outfit for tomorrow is already laid out. You have everything in top of where labeled in your fridge. You buy in bulk. You meal prep. You know what you're doing in 2027. You're a planner. And we're here to say you don't have to do it all. S&T Bank makes banking easy from our friendly team to our online and mobile solutions. We do more so you can do less. Stop by your local branch. Visit STBank.com or call 800-325-2265 S&T Bank. Member FDIC.