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.