Giants make 3 roster moves today that result in less overall team cap space

Tuesday is tryout day in the NFL. It's also the day teams typically make any necessary adjustments to their rosters (sometimes announcements are announced Wednesday mornings when player preparation begins for the next week's game). The Giants are short on WRs this season. They usually carry 6 on their 53-man roster each year. This year they only carried 5. TE Brandon Myers served as a pseudo WR to make that 6. With WR Victor Cruz being hurt in the game against Seattle, and likely to not play again this season, they needed an extra WR to be added onto the roster.

Today the Giants placed CB Corey Webster on Injured Reserve (the 12th Giants player to wind up on I.R. so far this season) in order to make room on the 53-man roster for a WR to take Cruz's place:

Webster had the 4th highest cap number on the Giants' 53-man active roster ($5.345 million) prior to being placed on Injured Reserve, as well as the 5th highest overall cap number on the team counting the players on I.R. already (Chris Snee has a higher cap number at $8.5 million). He does not have a salary split in his contract, sot there are no additional savings the team can recoup by placing him on I.R. as they gained when they placed Shaun Rogers & Brandon Jacobs on Injured Reserve previously. They promoted WR Julian Talley from their Practice Squad to fill the vacancy on the 53-man active roster.

To fill the vacancy on the Practice Squad, they signed RB Kendall Gaskins:

Gaskins is an Undrafted Rookie Free Agent Running Back, who can also play some Fullback--out of the University of Richmond who previously spent time with Buffalo after they signed him as an UDFA after the 2013 Draft. Buffalo cut him at the end of training camp; the Giants tried him out earlier this season, and have brought him into the fold today, signing him to their Practice Squad to fill the vacancy created as a result of Talley being promoted to the 53-man roster. The Giants were short at RB after placing Brandon Jacobs on I.R., so it made sense to sign a RB.

All three of these roster moves made sense today. I was going to post something about a move probably needing to be made earlier today, but I didn't get the chance. This just confirms the thought I had as soon as Cruz went down in the Seattle game. The Giants just need to hope that they don't suffer a multitude of injuries like Pittsburgh did in week 1, for if they do, they'll need to restructure a contract to be able to be to stay under the cap (Snee and/or Weatherford would be the likely candidates again, just as they were on September 4th, and again later on in the season, when Snee agreed to a second contract restructure during the season).

The Giants' strategy at this juncture is to just keep their heads above water from a cap standpoint, so they can get through the season without having restructure anymore contracts and add to their dead money total in 2014. They could only place 1 player on I.R. today without being forced into having to restructure a contract and add to that 2014 Dead Money total. It's all about avoiding injuries at this point in the season from a cap standpoint for the Giants. If they get through practices and the Detroit game unscathed before playing Washington in the season finale on December 29th, then they'll have achieved that objective.

The amount of carryover money that the Giants will have to add onto their 2014 Cap spending total in 2014 will not be anywhere near as much as their total from 2012 that was added onto this year's cap. Last year they added $1,000,000 in carryover money onto their cap spending total. They started the year approximately $490,000 under the cap, and are now going to be $41,888 under the cap, provided that calculations are correct. This will mean that they'll have spent approximately $450,000 of in-season cap dollars in addition to the $1.25 million in a second restructure agreed to by Snee and the Giants on September 30th for $1.25 million. I'm not counting the first restructure of Snee (and Weatherford) agreed to on September 4th that amounted to $1.925 million in order to get under the salary cap the day before the regular season accounting rules went into effect.

The Giants were dead last in available cap space to start the day. They were $89,535 under the cap. Talley's cap number will be $47,647 (the rate of $405,000 for players with no accrued seasons prorated for the two remaining weeks of the 17 game season). Subtracting this figure of $47,647 from $89,535 results in the Giants' present cap number of $41,888. Kendall Gaskins will be paid $12,000 for these last two weeks of the regular season at the league minimum rate of $6,000 per week for Practice Squad players for the 2013 season. As stated above, Talley will earn $47,647 in these final two games. This is a reward for him in a sense since he's been on the Giants' practice Squad since the start of the regular season. Talley is the fourth player on the Giants' 53-man roster that they've promoted from their Practice Squad thus far this season. The other three are CB Charles James, OG/C Stephen Goodin, and LB Marcus Dowtin.