Some more cap talk

So yesterday I wrote a post about our current cap situation. With the updates about the contracts of Martin and Omameh, I thought I could also post an update about our current situation.

Omameh and Martin:
Great news is I overestimated their 2018 cap hit. I actually really like both contracts and think they are very good value at 2.5 and 3.8 million against the cap respectively.

Remaining cap space:
Bad news. As of right now overthecap.com has us over the cap by 25k they could be off by a bit, but not by much so as of right now, the Giants have no money left to spend.

Creating cap space:
I laid out some possible moves yesterday. The obvious ones are cutting Marshall, Harris, Jerry and Ray-Ray Armstrong resulting in 9 million in cap savings.
Now 9 million is hardly enough to sign anybody, considering we would need between 7 and 8 million dollars for rookie contracts, so we need some more space...

Restructuring contracts:
Like I pointed out yesterday, the most obvious move here is to turn Ogletree's 7 million roster bonus into a siging bonus, prorated over the remaining length of his contract. This would create 5,2 million in cap space.
Next up I converted part of Snacks' base salary into a signing bonus. If we restructure 6 million of his 7,75 million base salary and prorate it we save another 4 million dollars against the cap this year.

Now what?
For those keeping track, in this scenario we now have a total of 18 million dollars available. Let's subtract 8 million for rookies to leave us with an even 10 million left to spend.

So what about Honey Badger?
I'd say it's still very hard for us to bring in Tyrann Mathieu.
Let's assume it would take at least an average of 11 million a year (as has been reported by some) and a 4 year contract to bring him in with half of the money guaranteed. so 4/44/22.
Signing bonus: 8 million + fully guaranteed 1st year base: 6 million + mostly guaranteed 2nd year base: 10 million + partly guaranteed 3rd year base: 10 million + not guaranteed 4th year base: 10 million = 44 million with 24 guaranteed.
To me this seems like a fair contract, that is backloaded without totally hamstringing the Giants in the future (yes the future is still also very important).
The cap hit in this case would still be (2 million of the prorated siging bonus + 6 million base) 8 million, leaving us with 2 million left to spend.

Now remember in this scenario we still don't have a CB3 (unless you think Honey Badger would mostly play the slot), our only receivers would be OBj and Sterling Shepard and we have no depth whatsoever at LB and D-line. Those are not things we can fix with 2 million dolaars and the draft.

Where there's a will, there's a way!
This is true. If the Giants are desperate they could make some more moves, like restructuring Janoris Jenkins, Oliver Vernon, JPP or Manning. It's important to remember though, that restructuring is just pushing money forward. Restructuring those contracts would mean two things:

1) Those players will be harder/impossible to cut in later years, because of the increase in dead money on their deals.

2) Whether we like it or not, we also have to deal with our 2019 cap hit. In the scenario I posted we would hardly have any space left next year and we would have to sign Landon Collins and OBj to big deals still.

Sure, we could create space in 2019 too by cutting Manning or JPP, but we be accumulating a hell of a lot of dead money in the process and no matter how you look at it dead cap puts you at a competitive disadvantage, because you are simply able to spend less total money.

Some notes:
- Obviously I'm not an NFL cap expert. I'm sure there's other ways to manipulate the cap and cap hits, but I'm fairly confident that even Kevin Abrams is not gonna be able to create millions more somehow.
- Depth is important and depth still costs money against the cap. For example: as we saw the last few years, going into the season with only two viable pass rushers is cutting it a little thin.
- Post june 1 cuts: Designating a cut as post June 1 is a usefull tool to create some more space, but remember that the extra money will not become available untill June 1. Say we designate Jerry and Harris as post june 1 cuts, that would create another 1,6 million in cap space, but we would not be able to use that money for FA's untill June 1.

That's about it for now, I think. Watch me be completely wrong when Gettleman signs Crabtree and Mathieu to great deals today.