Labor peace gives way to pandemonimum

Now that a collective bargaining agreement has been agreed upon the business of getting players together to play the games will get underway on Tuesday.  In Pittsburgh all of this is complicated by the reality that the Steelers have their draft picks to sign and are already $10,300,000 over the newly formulated salary cap.  With that in mind, here is a list of Steelers restricted free agents (RFA) and Unrestricted Free Agents (UFA).

RFAs
Dennis Dixon
William Gay
Tony Hills
Jeremy Kapinos
Doug Legursky
Ryan Mundy
Daniel Sepulveda

UFAs
Willie Colon
Nick Eason
Trai Essex
Keyaron Fox
Tuff Harris
Chris Hoke
Keenan Lewis
Anothony Madison
Mwelde Moore
Jonathan Scott
Matt Spaeth
Sean Suisham
Stevenson Sylvester
Ike Taylor
Greg Warren

Based upon available salary data, Flozell Adams seems a likely candidate for being cut ($5,000,000 2011 salary) despite having solidified the offensive line last season.  That move would reduce the Steelers overage to $5,300,000, and the question would then become is Aaron Smith willing to re-work his contract or would the Steelers cut him ($4,500,000 2011 salary).  The answer to that might depend upon the willingness of Ben Roethlisberger ($11,600,000), LaMarr Woodley ($10,091,00 in the final year of his contract), Max Starks ($6,575,000 for the next two seasons), Troy Polamalu ($6,400,000 in the final year of his contract), et al to re-work their deals.

The good news is fans won't have to wait very long to find out the answers ~ teams have until August 4 to get under the cap.