Giants sign 2 more players; roster total rises to 76; Futures Deals explained

Yesterday, the Giants signed veteran Tight End Kellen Davis (inactive for Seattle in the Super Bowl) and WR Travis Harvey, who spent part of last year with the Titans. Davis---a chronic underachiever---was drafted in 2008 in the fifth round out of Michigan State, and has 6 accrued seasons. Harvey, has no accrued years, and went undrafted last year out of Florida A&M.

Davis will serve as much needed veteran depth at TE; while not starting material, he adds a skill-set that is missing from this current crop of Tight Ends: the ability to man up and block his man one-on-one at the point of attack. He could easily be cut in training camp though if any draft picks impress in training camp, in combination with their young Tight Ends (Robinson and Donnell).

Davis and Harvey were signed to one-year deals. Davis was signed first, and is most likely going to receive a Minimum Salary Benefit (MSB) contract. Since he has 6 accrued years, his actual cash salary will be $730,000 plus up to $65,000 in an added signing bonus, for a 2014 total cash number of $795,000. His cap number, on the other hand, would be $635,000. This contract displaced the 51st ranked cap number on the team at the time he was signed, which belonged to DT Markus Kuhn's cap number, which came out to be $581,474. The difference between these two numbers---$53,526---is the amount of cap space which was used up for this signing due to the Top 51 Salary Cap Accounting Rule being in effect. The estimate for the Giants' cap number that I have at this point is now $4,609,903.

The Top 51 Rule has been in effect since the start of the 2014 league year from 4 pm EST on March 11th, and will cease at 11:59 pm EST on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014. After the Davis signing was leaked, the signing of WR Travis Harvey leaked. It's considered to be what is known as a Futures deal. Here's a good article by Ty Schalter of bleacherreport.com from about 2 months ago on the subject:

• "Everything You Need to Know About NFL Futures Contracts" - By Ty Schalter, NFL National Lead Writer | Feb 4, 2014

Harvey's signing won't count against the Giants' salary cap since it wont fall into the Giants' top 51 cap numbers. His cap & cash number will be the same, and will most likely only be for $420,000 since he has no accrued years despite having spent some time with the Titans last year in Training Camp. This is the absolute league minimum for players in the NFL. Here is the list for players and the salaries that correspond to their accrued years:

Harvey is the 15th player on the Giants' roster, which has 76 players at the moment (90-man limit), who is categorized as a Futures signing. 13 of those Futures signings don't count against the cap, while 2 do (Spencer Adkins & Troy Kropog, who have cap & cash numbers of $645K). 8 of these 15 signings were on the Practice Squad last year. 11 of the 13 who don't count against the cap have cap & cash numbers of $420,000---as in the case of Harvey. Two who don't count against the cap who have cap numbers higher than $420,000 are Preston Parker & Daniel Fells. Parker's cap & cash numbers are the same, $570,000, whereas Fells's are not. Daniel Fellas has a cap number of $570,000 and a cash number of $730,000.

What do the cap numbers of Davis & Harvey mean for the immediate future? Both of these players could easily both wind up being cut in Training camp if their competition impresses the coaching staff, as indicated by their contracts. The Giants have improved their depth at E and WR with these two signings. They will still most likely draft or sign an UDFA Tight End or two to help improve the quality of the Tight End position despite this signing. Harvey will have a shot to compete for the 6th WR spot or a spot on the Practice Squad, since he still has eligibility to qualify being on it.

According to my latest estimate, the Giants are $4,663,429 under the cap (not including adjustments)

Adjustments that factor in to the aforementioned available cap space for the Giants are as follows:

• Carrryover money (leftover cap space from 2013)
• NLTBE bonuses
• LTBE bonuses
• Cap grievances
• Cap penalties

OverTheCap.com has the Giants listed as being $4,183,375 under the cap. I'll probably contact Jason really soon to figure out how he they got that number because I'm using his figures (player cap numbers) to calculate mine. In the meantime, take a look at the cap & cash numbers listed below sourced from the Giants' 2014 team salary cap page on OverTheCap.com:

The players noted above all fit into the Giants' top 51 cap numbers. Here are the remaining 23 (the Giants have 74 players signed to their 90-man roster as of now). None of these players count towards the cap, at the moment:

2014 Cap & Cash numbers for all players on the Giants as of March 22, 2014

As of now, the Giants have 70 players signed to their 90-man roster, including OL John Jerry. I'm not 100% sure regarding Jerry's cash earnings for 2014 (it's a one-year Minimum Salary Benefit contract)--although I am confident the figure listed below for is correct. I am sure though about his 2014 cap number being $635,000.

Due to cap number displacement, Jerry's signing only cost the Giants $65,000 in cap space. His contract displaced the 51st ranked cap number on the Giants, which was $570,000. That difference of $65,000 is what was subtracted from the Giants' available cap space.

Rumor is that the Giants will be adding CB Zack Bowman soon too. We'll wait and see what that deal will be for, and then add that on to this list as well. For now though, here are the numbers (courtesy of OverTheCap.com's Giants Team Salary Cap Page). I've added my own twist to this, with the cash earnings for 2014, as can be seen in the last column on the right below. The second to last column on the right is for player cap numbers:



Top 51 Cap Numbers for players on the Giants as of now:

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Cap Numbers for players 52-70 on the Giants as of now:

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The players in the Top 51 count towards the salary cap, whereas those ranked 52 through 70 do not. This is due to the Top 51 Salary Cap accounting rule being in effect during the off-season from the first day of the league year on March 11th (starting at 4 pm EST), up until the day before the regular season opener during the first week of September (ending at 4 pm EST)---totaling roughly 5 months and 3 weeks. Once the top 51 Salary Cap accounting rule ends, other factors will be taken into account. They are as follows:

1. All 53 players on the opening day 53-man roster, instead of just the Top 51.
2. All 8 Practice Squad players.
3. All players who have received Injury Settlements during training camp, as inevitably happens each and every year.
4. All players who are on Injured Reserve, be it season ending IR or temporary IR.
5. All players on the PUP List.

Now, what do the numbers listed above actually mean with respect to the Giants' remaining salary cap room? I'll explain that in my next post. Keep in mind that only the Top 51 numbers will factor into calculating the Giants' available amount of cap space due to the Top 51 Rule being in effect. I'll also factor in Dead Money too ($2,778,141 as of now for the Giants) which I will list below here first:

What is Dead Money?

I wrote about this topic back in December (click HERE to read), but am reproducing it here for the sake of clarity due to some questions that I've received recently regarding this topic. Enjoy reading below and feel free to tweet me asking me further questions of you have them...

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What is Dead Money? Let me use a food analogy to keep things in layman's terms, as people can often relate to things better with their stomachs, especially if they're allergic to financial speak and jargon. Before I explain, first kindly keep this formula in mind as I go through the analogy below:

CAP NUMBER - CAP SAVINGS = DEAD MONEY

Let's say you're a poor starving college student living in a dorm. You're hungry, & you love pizza. Guess what? There's a box with leftover slices that your roommate liberated from a party he attended the previous night & brought back for you. 

You're starving, & you help yourself to the cold pizza in the box when you wake up. Problem is this: you can't save all the pizza. Only half the pie is left (4 slices), but one slice is no good, & is stuck to the bottom of the cardboard pizza box, with lots of cheese missing on top to boot.

That slice is analogous to DEAD MONEY. You saved the 3 other slices (CAP SAVINGS), but weren't able to save that poor slice stuck to the box.

Apply this now to Will Beatty's contract in the 2015 season:

CAP NUMBER ($8,050,000) - CAP SAVINGS ($550,000) = DEAD MONEY ($7,500,000)


Let's also apply this logic back to the pizza box. The pizza box originally had 8 slices in it---our CAP NUMBER. You subtracted the savings from it (4 slices), & were left with one bad slice that you couldn't put to use, a.k.a. DEAD MONEY. In the case of the pizza box, you had DEAD MONEY amounting to one slice. In Beatty's case, should the Giants decide to cut him in 2015, you'd be left with $7.5 Million in DEAD MONEY.

In summary, what's DEAD MONEY? It's the amount of a given player's CAP NUMBER that is left over after you cut him & count CAP SAVINGS. It's the part of the player's contract that remains on the accounting books after cutting him loose. The catch with DEAD MONEY is that it still counts towards a team's salary cap even after the player in question is off of the team.

When Free Agents walk, they have no Dead Money---unless they have Voidable Year deals like Brandon Myers & Corey Webster did, but they're exceptions to the rule. Dead Money is what you're stuck with still counting against your cap AFTER you get rid of the player---kind of like that disgusting slice of pizza.

Cap numbers for all 51 players on the Giants for the 2014 season as of now

The 2014 league year officially begins at 4 pm EST on March 11, 2014. That's roughly 11 and a half days from now, as of the timing of this post. The Top 51 Salary Cap accounting rule will kick in at that time as well. Right now, the Giants have 51 players under contract. Their cap numbers are as follows at the moment:

As can be seen, the Giants have $110,933,676 in cap dollars allocated to the 51 players who count towards the active player cap numbers thus far. In addition to this, they have $2,778,141 in Dead Money set aside for 11 players, 9 of whom are no longer on the team (Eric Herman and Charles James being the only exclusions).

The total for the cap numbers and Dead Money in 2014 is $113,711,817. This is then subtracted from what's called the team's adjusted cap. What exactly is this? I explained it in this post from last June (June 8th, 2013 to be exact):

• Variables that factor into cap adjustments & the Giants' present team cap space situation

The five factors that change a team's unadjusted cap into an adjusted cap, as explained in the article I linked above, are as follows:

1. Carryover money from the previous year
2. Finalized Grievances
3. Cap penalties
4. LTBE (Likely to be earned) bonuses
5. NLTBE (Not likely to be earned) bonuses

So far, only one of these factors has been determined. That is the Giants' carryover money from their salary cap in 2013. That figure is $17,447. This is as per the NFLPA's public league-wide cap report website.

What is an unadjusted cap you may ask? That is the bottom line figure that is not adjusted. This figure was set at $126.3 million at the end of the regular season. It has since went up to $128 million, and then $130 million. Most recently, it has been rumored to go up even more to between $132 & $133 million. as per the following tweets by Tom Pelissero and Luke Jones.

If the figure is set at $133 million, then that would be a mark-up of $6.7 million cap dollars from what it started out as being earlier this off-season. This would mean that in order to determine how much cap money the Giants have free at this point, you would subtract the total amount of allocated cap dollars ($113,711,817) from the actual---or projected---unadjusted cap ($133,000,000). If this were done with the figures in parentheses, then the Giants would have $19,288,183 in free cap space to use, as of this moment.

The voided contracts of Corey Webster ($1,000,000 in cap savings) & Brandon Myers ($3,250,000 in cap savings) have already been factored into this equation for those who are wondering. There are still other moves that are likely to be made as well. The contract of Chris Snee, highlighted in red above, is going to change. If the Giants cut him, they stand to gain $6.8 million in cap savings. Even if he remains on the team for the 2014 season, his $11.3 million cap number will most certainly go down significantly via a pay cut, as in the case of David Diehl last off-season. In my opinion, it would be a mistake to keep Snee at this juncture in his career following the past two injury-filled seasons, but that's neither here nor there.

There's also the the case of Eli Manning and Antrel Rolle, both highlighted in yellow above. Both of them are interesting cases. Eli has two years left on his deal, while Rolle has only one. Word now is that the Giants won't extend Eli this off-season. Whether or not this is actually true is open to speculation. If they wait, it'll get done next off-season for sure unless Eli gets injured in 2014. The Giants won't let their franchise QB become a FA, even if he turns 35 after the 2015 season. I wouldn't say for sure though right now that the Giants won't extend Eli this off-season though. Antrel Rolle's case is also one to watch. He'll turn 32 next December, in what will be his tenth year. He had previously refused to have the terms of his contract changed, but he has spoke up about this issue this off-season stating that he'd be open to an extension, which is a win-win for both the Giants and himself: they'd lower his cap number, and keep him for a few more years at a lower cap rate, and in turn, Rolle would actually make more in cash. There are two other players though who are not as cut and dried when it comes to dealing with their contract issues: namely David Baas and Mathias Kiwanuka.

I wrote about the possibility of making David Baas a post-June 1st cut in the article that I wrote for BigBlueInteractive.com below back in October:

• Three Ways of Dealing with David Baas’s Contract - Oct. 12, 2013

Mathias Kiwanuka is another guy who is a possibility for the post-June 1st cut designation. At the same time, he's also a guy who is a possibility for a pay cut. Baas and Kiwi have the 4th highest ($8.225 M) & 7th highest ($7.050 M) cap numbers on the Giants' roster at this time respectively. Those figures will undoubtedly go down since their performance, health, and age are no longer commensurate with their on-field production, or lack thereof, more accurately stated. If the Giants designate Baas as a post-June 1st cut, they'll stand to gain $5 million in cap savings as of June 2nd, as opposed to only $1.775 million in cap savings if he is a standard cut. If they do the same with Kiwi, they stand to gain $4.425 in cap savings if he is a post-June 1st cut, as opposed to only $1.8 million in cap savings if he is a standard cut. In the case of Baas, I'd opt to make him a post-June 1st cut, but the case of Kiwanuka is a little different. Kiwi's case depends on Tuck in my estimation. It's no secret how much the Giants value Defensive Ends in their 4-3 defense. If Tuck walks in free agency---a realistic possibility--then Kiwi has an increased chance of remaining with the Giants.

The Giants' 5 Restricted Free Agents are also going to factor into the cap equation (Henry Hynoski, Mark Herzlich, Jim Cordle, Spencer Paysinger, & Da'Rel Scott). We'll soon know what course of action they take with these players. March 11th is also the date that tenders for RFAs are made. If the salary cap is $130,000,000 then the figures will be as follows, from overthecap.com:

• 1st round tender = $3,043,000
• 2nd round tender = $2,138,000
• Right of First Refusal/Original round tender = $1,398,000

After doing some math, the tenders would go up the following figures of the cap is raised to $133,000,000:

• 1st round tender = $3,113,223
• 2nd round tender = $2,187,338
• Right of First Refusal/Original round tender = $1,430,262

If I had to guess, I'd say that Da'Rel Scott won't even be tendered, but that the rest of the RFAs, who are all Undrafted Free Agents, could receive the right of first refusal tender, with Paysinger having a shot at receiving the 2nd round tender. If PAysinger were to receive the 2nd round tender and the rest of the RFA (sans Scott) were to receive ROFR tenders, then that would take out about $6.5 million from the Giants' remaining estimated cap space amount of $19,288,183 mentioned above. More moves will continue to be made, most certainly in the cases of Snee and Rolle, and probably at least one of Baas and Kiwankuka.

Last salary cap/carryover update for the 2013 season

Here is the last update for the 2013 NFL season salary cap numbers via the NFLPA's league-wide public cap report website. I meant to do one last week, but there wasn't really a point to it. We're on the verge of the new league year in 15 days (4 pm ET on March 11th to be exact). The last update from 16 days ago was very similar to today's. the only changes were to the figures of four teams: Green Bay, Houston, New Orleans, & Indianapolis. Their rankings stayed the same in this update with Green Bay still ranked 7th, Houston still ranked 26th, New Orleans still ranked 29th, and Indianapolis still ranked 30th. The numbers changed as follows:

• Green Bay lost $10,411 in cap space from their last update on February 8th.
• Houston gained $32,647 in cap space from their last update on February 8th.
• New Orleans lost $400 in cap space from their last update on February 8th.
• Indianapolis lost $10,411 in cap space from their last update on February 8th.

As can be seen, the numbers for 3 clubs decreased (Green Bay, New Orleans, & Indianapolis), while that of one club increased (Houston).

Here is the latest round of figures, and the last that I'll be doing for the 2013 season:

In order of most cap space to least cap space:

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Alphabetical Order:

2013 season Salary Cap/Carryover update for all NFL teams as of Feb. 8th, 2014

Two changes have occurred to this list since I last updated team carryover status from 2013 into 2014 ten days ago on January 29th (click HERE to see that previous post). These figures are taken from the NFLPA's public League Cap Report. The two teams whose numbers changed since the last update I made were Detroit and New Orleans.

Detroit went from being $1,474,552 under the cap on January 29th to being $1,468,952 under the cap today. They lost $5,600 in available cap space in that time, and went from being ranked 21st in the NFL in available cap space ten days ago, to being ranked 22nd today (the Lions switched places with the Jets, who are now ranked 21st ahead of Detroit). The Saints went from being $623,917 under the cap ten days ago, to being $629,917 under it today. The Saints gained $6,000 in cap room between January 29th and today. They are still ranked 29th at .

The figures for the 30 other teams in the league have remained constant since January 29th. The Giants are ranked last in the NFL with only $17,447 in remaining cap space to end the 2013 season. The Super Bowl runners-up, the Denver Broncos, finished the season ranked 11th in the NFL in this category with $6,456,880 in remaining cap space to end the season (the post-season doesn't count towards the cap for those who are wondering). The newly crowned Super Bowl champions for the 2013 season, the Seattle Seahawks, finished the season ranked 15th in the league with $2,845,003 in available cap space to end the regular season. These numbers for the two Super Bowl participants tell us two things:

1. High quality teams like the Seahawks--and 49ers for that matter--with young QBs playing under their rookie contracts have a distinct advantage with respect to being able to develop depth. Of course, once Russell Wilson's rookie contract expires after the 2015 season, their cap paradigm will change significantly.
2. Teams with veteran Franchise QBs with a past history as a champion and former Super Bowl MVP and multiple League MVP take up a significant amount of cap space. As a result, the draft becomes doubly important to make up for not only depth, but quality young and cheap labor to fill out the rest of the roster, something which is clearly lacking with the Giants' roster at this point in time, as evidenced by the second half of the 2012 season, and the entire 2013 season.

As of now, I'm 99% sure that I'll only do one or two more of these updates for the 2013 season. If I only do one more, then I'll aim to make next weekend the last week that I update these figures for 2013, and then turn the page to 2014. If I do two more, then I'll do one next week, and the last one the week after. Without further ado, here are the 2013 cap figures for all 32 teams in the NFL as of today, February 8th, 2014:

In order of most cap space to least cap space:

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Alphabetical Order: