"Cruz signed his long-term deal prior to the 2013 season. He has four years left on that deal at an average salary of $7.5 million per year and an average cap hit of $9 million per year. This year's salary is a palatable $6.15 million. Next year's is a more exorbitant $7.9 million. None of the remaining salary in his deal is guaranteed..."
"But this is a cold business, this NFL contract business. And with Odell Beckham Jr. having exploded onto the scene as a superstar talent and producer in Cruz's absence, the Giants may well have the leverage they need to seek a reduction in Cruz's salary over the remaining four years of the deal. And it may be in their best salary-cap interest to seek that reduction. They can point out the 12 missed games over the past two years and use Beckham's emergence to help their case and maybe shave a couple of million bucks off of that cap number this year..."
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And I can imagine that a healthy Cruz along with OBJ to be the best duo in the league if Eli has time.
Especially at WR and DB, where you need more than 1 great player at these positions.
Rather than start talking about how to minimize Cruz (in any way), let's hope for a full recovery and the emergence of an incredible WR duo.
And the Giants don't really have a lot of leverage. They could threaten to cut him (bad precedent to set) but that only saves $2.4M and adds $5.7M in dead money to the books.
He might've been a restructure target if not for the injury in order to lower his cap #, but you can't risk that now until you've seen him on the field. Next offseason is when they'll look to restructure him (or force a paycut). Unless of course, he lights it up like 2011 and becomes a relative bargain.
If his comeback fails, they can cut him next offseason and save $6M against the cap. You gotta give a player of Cruz's ability at least a year though.
Funny we are paying Cruz and Beason approx the same next year, and both are questionable as to what we will get out of them...
if he was still the only stand out on the team he may be in trouble, but with obj grabbing all of the attention then he can ease back into it. i'm not worried, kid is a hell of a worker and knows whats at stake