Players who would be willing and able to help the Giants get further under the cap

I mentioned this topic yesterday, so I'll get right to it. These 5 players immediately stand out with respect to this question:

1. Antrel Rolle (2 years left on his deal; 2013 & 2014 cap numbers of $9.25 M)
2. Chris Snee (2 years left on his deal; 2013 cap # of $11 M & 2014 cap # of 9 M)
3. Steve Weatherford (4 years left on his deal; 2013 cap # of $2.5 M & 2014 cap # of 2.7 M)
4. Eli Manning (3 years left on his deal; 2013 cap # of $20.85 M & 2014 cap # of 20.4 M)
5. Justin Tuck (1 year left on his deal; 2013 cap # of $6.15 M)

Contractual figures courtesy of 2013 Giants salary cap figures from overthecap.com

I'm trying to touch base with Jason Fitzgerald, one of my senseis, from overthecap.com regarding what would be best for each. So far, he says he wouldn't extend Rolle, which makes sense considering his age (he'll turn 31 on December 16th, in what will be his 9th year in the NFL).

I'd aim to restructure Rolle, Snee, & Weatherford; try for an extension for Eli (even though this is more likely to happen next year); and go the voidable year route for Tuck, who is in the final year of his deal, a la Osi last year, and Webster this year. Depending on what Cruz's new cap number is going to be for 2013--assuming he and the Giants come to terms on a new contract for him by the end of July/beginning of August--I'm guesstimating that the Giants are going to have to make somewhere between $2 million to $4 million dollars in cap room.

I'll have a better estimate after next weekend, after I put together my second projected possible 53-man roster for the 2013 Giants, based on who's on the roster at the moment. I'd estimate that that figure will be closer to the smaller estimate, for what it's worth. I'd assume that Cruz's cap number would be smaller in the first year of his new deal (2013), if it were agreed upon, before escalating in subsequent years. Fortunately, the Giants don't have too much committed to salary in 2014 yet. The figure that is listed by Jason Fitzgerald over at overthecap.com for the Giants with regard to 2014 is $104,100,847. Of course, that figure will shrink once the contracts of star WR Hakeem Nicks is up.

Hopefully, by 2014 the Giants will have worked out an extension for Eli Manning, thereby creating even more space under the cap--which the Giants will require to get their affairs in order (It helps a great deal of course that Tom Condon is not only Eli's agent, but Tom Coughlin's and Victor Cruz's agent as well). The 5 players mentioned above will be pivotal figures going forward with respect to the overall structure of the Giants' team salary cap. They're ranked as follows in 2013, with respect to their cap numbers:

1. Eli - ranked #1 on the team (cap number of $20,850,000)
2. Snee - ranked #2 on the team (cap number of $11,000,000)
3. Rolle - ranked #3 on the team (cap number of $9,250,000)
4. Tuck - ranked #4 on the team (cap number of $6,150,000)
5. Weatherford - ranked #13 on the team (cap number of $2,500,000)

Tuck's figure can go bye-bye all together since he's only got one year left on his deal. If he is left to just finish out his contract as is, then there will be no leftover dead money, which is always something that team's relish when it comes to salary cap space after one of their bigger expiring contracts is finally off the books. As it stands now, the Giants have very little dead money on their cap for next season, if any at all--something which they'd like to maintain, if they can.

While Eli's and Tuck's contracts look pretty cut and dried, those of Snee, Rolle, and Weatherford will require more finesse to deal with since they're much more likely to be restructures. I have a hunch too, that one of either Snee or Rolle--whoever they don't deal with this year--will be released next year, a la Boley, Canty, and Bradshaw about 4 and a half months ago.

The best thing going for Weatherford is this: he's a punter. As such, his longevity will help him and the Giants, should they agree to an extension at some point in the future right before his contract ends (which is 2016 at this point). He'll turn 31 on December 17th, and is entering his 8th NFL season. He keeps himself in magnificent shape, and should be able to kick well into his 30s. Look at the lackluster shape that Jeff Feagles kept himself in; he kicked 22 seasons in the NFL until the year 2009, when he he was 43.

A guy like Weatherford is a prime candidate for an extension 2 to 3 seasons from now, near the end of his current contract. If the Giants restructured him now, they could gain as much as $738,750 in cap room for 2013, but the real money is tied into the Rolle and Snee, not him. I'm fascinated by what will happen to the Giants' cap situation in 2013 and 2014 for a couple of reasons:

1. They've got the contracts of Cruz and Nicks getting ready to potentially expire, to go along with that of JPP. These 3 players, along with Eli Manning, are the Giants' "core players."
2. The Giants' Minimum Salary Benefit contracts are also the most numerous on one team in the entire league (the Giants have 11 MSB contracts at this time). They're probably going to have to adjust the team's overall makeup in 2014 because of these situations

As the offseason moves along, and we near the date on which the Top 51 rule will cease, I'll provide updates and possible scenarios and opinions on how the Giants can lighten their salary cap burden, before it becomes too much to bare.

35 more days to go until Training Camp starts up on July 26th at the Timex Center here in Jersey

Here's a little itinerary of things I'll be focusing in on writing about over the next week, or so as we approach the start of training camp during this lull in the NFL schedule:

1. Players who the Giants can turn to for cap help, which I'll write about tonight.
2. Listing the team cap situations for all 32 teams around the league sometime this weekend.
3. My second attempt at coming up with a 53-man roster and practice squad for salary cap purposes, probably sometime between next Friday and next Sunday.

As more things come to mind, I'll list them here first, before writing them. I often come up with a list of things, and write them down, but forget to cover them as much as I originally intended to, but hopefully this way my thoughts will be out there for myself and the reading audience to see, so I don't forget as often as I did before.

If anyone has a topic or questions that they'd like me to cover, feel free to leave comments on any of the posts, or e-mail me (optimus2g@aol.com or nygcapcentral@gmail.com

You can also tweet me here:

@NYGCapCentral

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.