Giants Cap Woes

The Jets aren't the only local team with salary cap woes.  The New York Giants are in deep trouble right now too.  Today, the Giants sit at about $2.5 million under the cap, but just a few days ago they had to make some big personnel decisions.  So why were the Giants in this position to begin with?

Let's start with dead money.  When players are signed to a contract, their signing bonus becomes prorated over the length of their deal, up to 5 years.  The signing bonus money is paid up front to the player when they sign the deal.  Since the money is paid in full to the player, the signing bonus figure counts regardless of whether or not the player is with the team.  Thus, if you cut a player, any money left in the prorated signing bonus gets accelerated to the current cap figure.  Before cutting Ahmad Bradshaw, Chris Canty, and Michael Boley, the dead cap for the Giants was actually extremely minimal:

• Osi Umenyiora-$1,000,000
• Greg Jones-$100,132
• Matt McCants-$66,174
• Martin Parker-$5,000

TOTAL: $1,171,306

Add in the 3 players who were cut recently:

• Ahmad Bradshaw-$2,500,000
• Chris Canty-$1,700,000
• Michael Boley-$1,400,000 

TOTAL: $6,771,306

So now, we can add up the Giants current cap figures with current contracts, add in the dead money, and subtract the $1,000,000 salary cap rollover and we can determine exactly how much money they have to play with:

  Total Contracts: $113,574,892
+Total Dead Money: $6,771,306
$120,346,198

  Total Cap Hit: $120,346,198
-Total Cap Rollover: $1,000,000
$119,346,198

   Net Cap Hit: $119,346,198
 -NFL Salary Cap: $121,500,000
$2,153,802

So there we go folks, the Giants currently have just $2,153,802 left in total cap space.  Now lets go into why Bradshaw, Canty, and Boley had to go:

Let's start by posting each person's 2013 contract figures and then subtracting their dead money from what their cap hit in 2013 would have been to get a net cap hit figure:

Ahmad Bradshaw:
Base Salary: $3,750,000
Signing Bonus: $1,250,000
Workout Bonus: $250,000
Total Cap Hit: $5,250,000 
Net Cap Hit: $2,750,000

Chris Canty:
Base Salary: $6,250,000
Signing Bonus: $1,700,000
Workout Bonus: $250,000
Total Cap Hit: $8,200,000
Net Cap Hit: $6,500,000

Michael Boley:
Base Salary: $4,250,000
Signing Bonus: $1,400,000
Total Cap Hit: $5,650,000
Net Cap Hit: $4,250,000

So in total by cutting those 3 guys, the Giants saved a total of $13,500,000.  It's amazing how they're still just $2,153,802 under cap.  They're going to be in BIG trouble if they don't make more room.  Why?  Here's a list of players the Giants are losing to free agency this year...

Brian Witherspoon
Osi Umenyiora
Lawrence Tynes
Justin Tryon
Justin Trattou
Adrian Tracy
Ryan Torain
Keith Rivers
Kenny Phillips
Kregg Lumpkin
Sean Locklear
Domenik Hixon
Victor Cruz
Jim Cordle
David Carr
Stevie Brown
Andre Brown
Kevin Boothe
Chase Blackburn
Rocky Bernard
Martellus Bennett
Travis Beckum
William Beatty
Ramses Barden

As good as the Giants have been at finding players, I'm not sure how the Giants will get themselves out of this mess.  A lot of those players are reserve guys, but there are also big names like Osi, Cruz, Tynes, Blackburn, Bennett, Phillips, Brown, Bernard, and Beatty.  David Wilson is the only RB left on the roster, they have no serviceable TE on the roster, and the WRs are going to be gutted.  Just Ruben Randle and Hakeem "Always Hurt" Nicks left. 

Unfortunately, I believe this is going to be a rough rebuilding year for the Giants.  The typically level-headed Giants front staff seemingly went all-in trying to get a couple more championships.  Unfortunately, it seems like this team is going to be in pretty rough shape.