with the offseason nearly officially ended as training camps open it seems like a stable time to look forward. adding a justin houston type (for real) would/could still happen but it seems unlikely anything happens before the season that changes the info below to impact 2024. it may seem counter intuitive given most of my posts involve the cap but i think for the most part people make too big of a deal out of it. it's a budget and with any budget that just means you need to make choices. more so than the minutia of contracts (most of which end up within a range of justifiable comps whichever way) for me the bigger learning from the cap is that the numbers don't lie and what the players get paid is the most honest commentary we get on how teams actually feel about those players. just like the draft reveals their draft boards.
this may be surprising, but most teams have only around a dozen veterans on multi-year second contracts. Less surprising is that that top 20% of the roster takes up more than double that amount of cap room. last year for example the giants opening 53 had 8 multi-year 2nd contract players (tyrod, glowinski, golladay, shepard, martinez, gano, adoree, l williams) and they accounted for $67.5m of their $149m active cap, representing 45% of the Giants total active cap. that group was a hodgepodge of holders soon departing, low cost bandaids the new regime signed, and ultimately just 2 clearly positive impact starters (jackson, williams). not good production from what's supposed to be "the core" but not unsurprising because the new regime didnt become the new regime because things were going swell.
in their 2nd year the new regime has made significant upgrades to their cluster of multi-year vets (note this is 9 players because I thought including Thomas paints a more accurate picture since he's clearly the next in line for a big extension, I forgot to put gano on the chart so he's not there either but his bar would have been insignificant any way and he expires next year).
there are some more takeaways at the link below but one that's a bit under the radar imo is okereke since he clearly seems to be a guy they valued at a pretty core level.
| Bobby Okereke (10m aav, 22m guaranteed) was seemingly also a pretty substantial piece. He essentially got the total $ targets Barkley was looking for (albeit over 4 years instead of 3). I don’t think it’s an understatement to say they paid him like they are expecting a pro bowler. It sounds like he’ll wear green dot which means he’ll be on the field all downs and possibly end up a captain. Fingers crossed like Antonio Pierce and Michael Boley before him he’s the infrequent UFA success story. |
There's of course varying amounts of flexibility to course correct, with Jones year 2 cap hit standing out like a sore thumb as a possible restructure "piggy bank", but for the most part this regime used this offseason to choose Jones, Lawrence, Okereke, and Waller to form the main core over the next several years (with Thomas likely next to join). Barkley and McKinney line up as 2 big decisions entering contract years, with Williams and Jackson not so far behind.
An Eye on Giants '24 Cap As Offseason #2 Ends - (
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The cap is both more important and less important than people seem to think. What a player's cap hit is in a given year is almost irrelevant. What is critical is how much cash you actually pay them over time. And it is virtually impossible to overstate how critical this is. Overpay players - Golladay,Solder - and you have to get very lucky to win. Keep good players on high value contracts (hopefully Dex and DJ) and you build a good core.
The cap is both more important and less important than people seem to think. What a player's cap hit is in a given year is almost irrelevant. What is critical is how much cash you actually pay them over time. And it is virtually impossible to overstate how critical this is. Overpay players - Golladay,Solder - and you have to get very lucky to win. Keep good players on high value contracts (hopefully Dex and DJ) and you build a good core.
specific to this part, when you go the FA route big, it almost assures you are going to miss a lot because most UFAs get overpaid. and most of the guys who get to UFA it's because their prior team didn't want to extend. i'm always happy to hear schoen's comments on preferring to stay away from the top end of UFA.
if you don't draft well enough you are forced to go that route, and honestly at that point you dont have much to lose because you cant spend all your cap on rookie deals, but the better you draft the better your options are and the more picks you bring back when players sign elsewhere to keep drafting more talent.
We aren't at 12, even counting Barkley and Waller, but with guys like Thomas and McKinney coming up the number is growing. But then again, with guys like Williams and Jackson coming off soon....
We're in good shape. Have room to replace guys like Williams and Jackson (or even keep them) while keeping the younger cornerstone players and adding a vet here and there.
We aren't at 12, even counting Barkley and Waller, but with guys like Thomas and McKinney coming up the number is growing. But then again, with guys like Williams and Jackson coming off soon....
We're in good shape. Have room to replace guys like Williams and Jackson (or even keep them) while keeping the younger cornerstone players and adding a vet here and there.
yeah some teams are a little higher, but they are usually playing games to squeeze players in because they are going for SBs. Buffalo has about 13 even if i leave off some of the cheaper depth guys multiyear (kind of like leaving off Nacho here). Philly has 13 or 14 and probably had even more last year before losing Hargrave, Kyzir white, and a few others who weren't on their rookie deals.
the math funnel kind of works like this:
4 years of drafts/rookie contracts = 30+ rolling rookie contract roster spots
2-3 per draft year need to be good enough to extend into 2nd contracts for a 10-15 person core
fill in the rest with vets as needed.
you have to draft well and you have to choose your core smartly.
Thanks Brian - I generally agree that the first cut of guys they committed to was the right group. The right ages, the right amount of risk reward. Well structured contracts too. Lawrence and Jones aren't under contract for any seasons past age 30, and i expect it to be the same with Thomas when they extend him too.
Barkley is the only guy I think they made a mistake on over a small amount of money. You can see how small his tag amount is visually in the chart, an extra million or two wouldn't have changed much. He was easily the difference in 2 or 3 wins last year. Was less than $2m per year worth a contentious season with a captain who seems like one of the hardest working and most well liked guys on the team?
he was a nominee for CPOY for a reason, this time last year we werent sure if he could do what he did last year any more and i think a lot of hard work went into that. especially the improvements in pass pro.
Most of that will go to Thomas & McKinney. But they have a ton of space & flexibility in 2025.
I’ve noticed the key to navigating the cap is having flexibility and room to maneuver 2 years out. It allows a team to front load deals and extend or acquire core players.
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I have said it too many times to count but it was mostly theory on my part that teams do in fact pay about 12 veteran whopper contracts at any given point in time. I would just rattle off the players in my head during the prime Eli and Coughlin run and always come up with about 12. Some of those guys probably at the end of their big contract while others were in the beginning, but the number was always around 12, give or take.
We aren't at 12, even counting Barkley and Waller, but with guys like Thomas and McKinney coming up the number is growing. But then again, with guys like Williams and Jackson coming off soon....
We're in good shape. Have room to replace guys like Williams and Jackson (or even keep them) while keeping the younger cornerstone players and adding a vet here and there.
yeah some teams are a little higher, but they are usually playing games to squeeze players in because they are going for SBs. Buffalo has about 13 even if i leave off some of the cheaper depth guys multiyear (kind of like leaving off Nacho here). Philly has 13 or 14 and probably had even more last year before losing Hargrave, Kyzir white, and a few others who weren't on their rookie deals.
the math funnel kind of works like this:
4 years of drafts/rookie contracts = 30+ rolling rookie contract roster spots
2-3 per draft year need to be good enough to extend into 2nd contracts for a 10-15 person core
fill in the rest with vets as needed.
you have to draft well and you have to choose your core smartly.
Yep great work and summary. All comes down to the draft. If you hit on enough you will be able to keep the keepers. The hard part is 300+ batting average every single April.
It's a fine line as to where a little bit more is too much. Schoen chose where to draw the line AND still has Barkley.
Overall, I think it has been obvious for a while that a few core players will eat up the lion's share of the cap. From there, you need to draft well to offset that with decent, lower paid, players. Add to that an ability to find lower/moderately paid vets who are lunch pail contributors and/or have a little bit left in the tank. Giants failings have been establishing a core and drafting/poaching a second tier.
Most of that will go to Thomas & McKinney. But they have a ton of space & flexibility in 2025.
I’ve noticed the key to navigating the cap is having flexibility and room to maneuver 2 years out. It allows a team to front load deals and extend or acquire core players.
next year they have a lot of space. the challenge is the number of players on the roster approaching 2nd contracts over the next 2 years, and the reality that they likely wont be able to pay all of them:
2024
Barkley
McKinney
2025
Hodgins
Thomas
Ojulari
plus Williams and Jackson hitting UFA in 2024 for 3rd contracts on top of those 5.
the 2024 guys are obviously a little more urgent but the earlier you sign players, the more team friendly the terms are, so there's incentive to try to make a decision on a player like Hodgins earlier rather than later.
those drafts were a wasteland and they got some bad injury luck on the few core players they already had (jpp especially).