Giants interested in free agent Linebacker Desmond Bishop

The Packers released Bishop 4 days ago (read about it HERE). He saved them $3,664,000 in cap space when they released him this past Monday, as can be seen below (contractual information courtesy of overthecap.com):

The Giants are one of four teams that have shown interest in Bishop. They are the Vikings, Chiefs, Giants, & Jaguars. He already met with the first two clubs. These two local articles are nice quick reads on the situation:

• Giants eyeing former Packers LB Bishop By PAUL SCHWARTZ Last Updated: 9:20 AM, June 21, 2013
• Giants express interest in linebacker Desmond Bishop - By Dave Hutchinson/The Star Ledger on June 21, 2013 at 10:08 AM, updated June 21, 2013 at 10:16 AM

Looking at the Giants' cap situation--which is what this site basically is for--it's easy to tell that the Giants don't have much room under the cap to do a lot. As of today, the Giants are $3,308,682 under the salary cap (source: TOP 51 LEAGUE CAP REPORT). The most that they'd probably be able to offer Bishop, who is set to turn 29 near the end of July is a Minimum Salary Benefit (MSB) contract. Bishop has six accrued seasons, as per profootballreference.com, and would receive $715,000 in pay plus a signing bonus of no more than $65,000 in order to allow the club that signs him to still be eligible for the reduced salary benefit on their overall team salary cap; see below:

If Bishop agreed to this kind of deal for a season, he'd get $780,000 in salary, while only counting $620,000 against a team's salary cap, saving the club $160,000 in salary there. The perceived savings wouldn't end there though due to the fact that we're in the Top 51 phase of cap savings calculations, in which the Top 51 rule is in effect. Bishop's MSB cap number listed above would displace the 51st ranked cap number on the team now, which happens to belong to Spencer Paysinger. You would subtract Paysinger's cap number of $556,000 from Bishop's cap number of $620,000 in this hypothetical scenario and get $64,000. The Giants' team cap number would then decrease by that $64,000 amount, resulting in an adjusted cap number of $3,244,682.

It's a move that would make sense for Bishop if the  market out there for him is thin. He missed the 2012 season due to a hamstring injury, which the Packers placed him on IR for. They didn't really need to release Bishop to save money against the cap since they were about $13,143,631 comfortably under the cap on Monday, and are now $16,327,631 under the cap today. Here are the cap statuses of the other 3 teams rumored to be interested in Bishop:

Jaguars: $26,410,652

Vikings: $7,131,654

Chiefs: $3,562,128

As can be seen, the Jags have plenty of room to spare whereas the Chiefs are in roughly the same situation as the Giants. The Vikings have room, but still have to sign all three of their first round draft picks (Sharrif Floyd, Xavier Rhodes, & Cordarrelle Patterson), which will cut into their cap number, while the Chiefs still need to sign the #1 overall pick in the entire 2013 draft, OT Eric Fisher, which will also cut into their cap by about $4,034,636 according to the pick by pick salary cap estimates for players picked in the 2013 draft from overthecap.com (click HERE). Don't forget that the Giants' cap number will go down by about a million bucks (slightly less actually at $961,436) once first round pick Justin Pugh signs too. 

By looking at these numbers, it's obvious that the Jaguars are the team that would offer Bishop the best chance at a high salary for 2013. The thing Bishop needs to consider though if he decides to go to Jacksonville is this: they stink, and would he be willing to wallow on an awful team and waste away a chance to highlight his skills? The question that must be asked though regarding Jacksonville's reported interest is this: why would they really want to sign him? Do they need a player who missed the 2012 season that badly?

If the Jaguars are not in the equation, then in my opinion the Giants have a real shot at him. With the Giants, Bishop would at least have an opportunity to showcase his talents on a good team, Kawika Mitchell style a la 2007, when he signed a one-year deal with the Giants, and then departed the following season to sign a long-term deal with Bills. It'll be interesting to see what gets done going forward on this front, and who signs him, if in fact he does not come to terms with the Giants. It's pretty evident that he would improve the talent level on this roster at the LB position. It certainly bares keeping an eye on in this dead time of year.