According to Ed Bouchette, the Pittsburgh Steelers restructured the contract quarterback Ben Roethlisberger to help free up some additional 2012 salary cap space for the team. The Steelers reduced the 2012 base salary of Roethlisberger all the way down to $900,000 from $11.6 million and that $10.7 million was turned into a signing bonus which will be prorated out over the remaining four years of the contract. The restructure now drops the 2012 cap hit of Roethlisberger from $16.92 million to $8.895 million and creates a 2012 cap savings of $8.025 million.

Roethlisberger\’s redone deal creates about $8 million in cap space for #steelers, agent Ryan Tollner tells me — Ed Bouchette (@EdBouchette) February 23, 2012

Over the last few weeks the Steelers have created over $20 million of cap space with the restructures of LaMarr Woodley, Lawrence Timmons, Ike Taylor and Willie Colon. They also terminated the contracts of Arnaz Battle and Bryant McFadden in addition. There could be a few more restructures on the way as both James Harrison and Troy Polamalu could be candidates.

With all of the recent restructures and contract terminations, the Steelers have managed to create around $29 million in additional 2012 salary cap space. The agents for both Roethlisberger and Harrison recently let it be known that both of their clients were willing to restructure their contracts to help the team.