Jason Fitzgerald of overthecap.com wrote a fine article on this subject this afternoon. You can read about it by clicking on the link immediately below his tweet regarding the Snee & Weatherford restructures:
Now, what did Snee & Weatherford gain by agreeing to these partial contractual restructures?
- Snee got $2,500,000 in up-front money.
- Instead of waiting for this amount to be paid to him over the course of the season, he got it in one fell swoop; however, his dead money increased in 2014 by $1,250,000 from $2,000,000 to $3,250,000.
- His 2014 cap number increased by $1.5 million dollars, with his cap savings if released in 2014 increasing by $250,000.
- His base salary increased $250,000 next year from being $6.95 million to $7.2 million.
- 2014 is the last year of his contract.
- As a result of this move, my guess is that Snee either retires next year, gets cut in February to make some much-needed cap room if he still can and wants to play, or if he still can and would like to play they'll extend him so as to create more cap room that way.
- Weatherford received $900,000 in up-front money.
- Instead of waiting for this amount to be paid to him over the course of the season, he got it in one fell swoop as well; however, his dead money increased $675,000 in 2014, $450,000 in 2015, and $225,000 in 2016.
- His cap number increased over the next 3 years of his contract by $225,000 each year.
- 2016 is the last year of his contract.
- As a result of this move, my hunch is that the Giants will extend him after the 2015 season, before he enters the final year of his contract, in order to gain added cap room in 2016 and onward.
Here are the new contractual breakdowns for Snee & Weatherford, courtesy of the Giants' 2013 Salary Cap page from overthecap.com:
You can compare these new figures with their old figures listed below for reference purposes:
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As a result of these moves, the Giants gained $1,250,000 in cap room from Snee's restructure, and another $675,000 from Weatherford's restructure, hence the total of $1,925,000. These moves were done just to get under the threshold, and I mean BARELY. At present, the Giants only a minimal amount of cap room to get by (only a couple hundred thousand in my opinion). Jason Fitzgerald from overthecap.com, who I correspond with often, has the number as listed as being $469,445---which is dead last in the NFL according to his figures. Check out this link to see:
From what I can tell by reading into these numbers, I see that the Giants are taking a "use as needed approach" to managing their free cap space over the course of the regular season while the salary cap rules specific to it are in effect. If the Giants need more cap room, they'll have to go back into the well. Weatherford can only give them another $63,750 worth of added cap space
this year if they go back to him---which is chump change.
This is where "old reliable" Snee comes back into the equation. He can give them another $1,680,000 in added cap space. That's a total of $1,743,750 in cap dollars between these two players that they can still help the Giants gain if they need added cap space. They can't milk more than this amount out of Snee & Weatherford if they need their help again during the season. If they need more than that amount of $1,743,750 in-season---which is probably less than 50/50 at this point---they'll have to go elsewhere to find it.
This is where "old reliable" Snee comes back into the equation. He can give them another $1,680,000 in added cap space. That's a total of $1,743,750 in cap dollars between these two players that they can still help the Giants gain if they need added cap space. They can't milk more than this amount out of Snee & Weatherford if they need their help again during the season. If they need more than that amount of $1,743,750 in-season---which is probably less than 50/50 at this point---they'll have to go elsewhere to find it.
