This is the last week that the Giants need manage their in-season salary cap with the little cap room they have

Teams tend to leave room for in-season transactions and emergency funds at the start of the regular season accounting rules the first day of the season. This year the Giants restructured the contracts of Chris Snee and Steve Weatheford to the tune of $1.25 million for the former and $675,000 for the latter respectively. That total of $1.925 million in restructures on September 4th resulted in the Giants being approximately $490,000 under the salary cap to start the 2013 season, as per OverTheCap.com, on the first day that regular season accounting rules went into effect on Thursday, September 5th.

Since then, the Giants have went on to restructure Chris Snee's contract a second time on Monday, September 30th when they were only $60,066 under the salary cap the day before that, as per the NFLPA's League Cap Report website. That was just after week 4. We are now entering the last week of the season, week 17, and the Giants are getting by with only $41,888 of free room under the cap as of today---the lowest amount in the entire NFL.

In order to avoid restructuring another deal (Snee or Weatherford again, even though Snee is on I.R.) the Giants can't place more than one player on I.R. this week. The league minimums would be prorated for this final week (1/17 multiplied by the corresponding rate). Those rates corresponding to accrued years of experience are as follows:

Here are the rates for one week of service:

• A player with no accrued years would cost $23,824.
• A player with 1 accrued year would cost $28,235.
• A player with 2 accrued years would cost $32,647.
• A player with 3 accrued years would cost $37,059.
• A player with 4 or more accrued years would cost the same as a player with 2 accrued years ($32,647) due to the Minimum Salary Benefit (MSB) rule.

As can be seen, it is advantageous for clubs to sign players with none or just one accrued year credited towards Free Agency--being on the active roster for at least 6 games--due to the fact they're cheaper and make up the vast majority of Practice Squads throughout the league; click HERE to read about Practice Squad eligibility and what makes up an accrued season. It should be noted that a player can still maintain Practice Squad eligibility with one accrued season if he is in the 46-man active game-day roster for less than nine regular season games. They're also not vested veterans (players with 4 or more years credited towards free agency), which makes them even more desirable due to the roster flexibility that they offer. The fact that they're not termination pay eligible is also significant, especially prior to week 1.

The Giants have injuries at RB (Andre Brown & Peyton Hillis) this week, so the fact that they're depleted at that position may necessitate a player being placed on I.R. to make room for newly signed RB Kendall Gaskins being promoted from the Practice Squad to the 53-man roster. This doesn't include the injuries to JPP and Victor Cruz that will keep them out of the season finale on Sunday against Washington.

The Giants would like to avoid having to I.R. more than one player this week, so as not to be forced to restructure another player contract. They have two things going in their favor. The first is that this is the last game of the season, so this one game is all that they're going to be worried about getting through, as opposed to a month or more. The second thing that they have in their favor is that the game-day Inactive list functions as a pseudo form of Injured Reserve. 7 players have to be inactive on Sundays on each 53-man roster throughout the league, so that 46 players can be active for the games.

Two of this Sunday's inactives are already certain: Cruz and JPP. The other 5 will be in flux. The Giants always leave a QB inactive too on Sundays (it might be Painter who's inactive this week instead of Nassib), so that makes three. The other 4 inactives may include a TE---one of either Adrien Robinson, who hurt his knee on the opening kickoff of this past week's game in Detroit, or Larry Donnell. They may also include LB Allen Bradford, who has been one of the usual suspects who have wound up on the inactive list many times this season. That leaves two other openings for the inactive list this week. It makes sense that one of the two other remaining inactives would be an Offensive Lineman (Brandon Mosley who broke his hand in Detroit or David Diehl w/a banged up knee if he still isn't healthy). Here is the up-to-date list of the Giants on this week's injury report courtesy of Patricia Traina:

Source: New York Giants: What You Need to Know Heading into Week 17 - December 24, 2013 | Bleacher Report

The final inactive spot may go to either a DT, a S (Cooper Taylor was out last week with a hamstring injury), or a RB. Peyton Hillis was out last week with a concussion, and Andre Brown is still yet to be cleared for action due to the concussion he he suffered against Detroit.

The Giants only had two RBs active in last Sunday's game in Detroit, not counting FB John Conner). The final inactive spot/pseudo I.R. could go to any of these players I mentioned. What the Giants want to avoid doing is being forced into placing anyone on I.R. again, especially 2 since that would necessitate a contract restructure that would lessen their already small carryover amount of cap room into next season.

My guess is that they'll wind up placing someone on I.R. (Cruz, JPP, or A. Brown; probably Cruz), & then promote RB Kendall Gaskins (who has no accrued seasons and would cost $23,824 for a week's pay) to the 53-man roster just so that they could get through practice the rest of the week (the Giants will be working tomorrow) and then sign someone to the Practice Squad for this last week---either a RB or WR. Those 3 transactions would lower the Giants' cap number from $41,888 to $18,064. In this scenario, my guess for the Giants' 7-man Inactive list as of today for the last game of the season against Washington would be as follows (with only 1 player going on I.R.):

• DE, JPP
• OG, Mosley
• RB, A. Brown
• TE, Robinson
• QB, Painter
• LB, Bradford
• S, Taylor

The Giants may go another route all together and simply get through the last few practices this week leading up to this game by leaving everything as is, but they're really banged up, so I don't know how realistic that would be. They could also I.R. a player and opt to go with only 52 players n their roster this week as well, but I doubt that happens. Any way you cut it, by this time next week we should know how much cap space that the Giants will carry over into next year's adjusted cap. Last year the Giants carried over $1,000,000 into their adjusted cap from 2012. Next year, they'll be carrying over a fraction of that. It'll be interesting to see what happens these next few days since Tuesday is tryout day in the NFL. Wednesday is the day players turn the page and begin to officially prepare for the next week's game.

If the Giants make any roster moves for this coming week's last game of the season, we're likely to find out tomorrow, until then I hope everyone enjoys the coming days off whether you celebrate or not. Happy Holidays to everyone out there...



P.S. Don't forget to rock your ugly Christmas sweaters like these guys!

Source: Giants' ugly sweater Christmas party

A little refresher: Cap Numbers, Salary, & Dead Money---what's the difference?

This topic came up yesterday on this thread on BigBlueInteractive.com to go along with dead money. I'll write up a refresher on Dead Money here in the couple of days, but I'll start with cap numbers first.

To start off, what is a cap number?? It is how much a player counts against a team's adjusted salary cap (each team has a different adjusted salary cap). A player's salary is not necessarily the same as his cap number. Most of the time it isn't. Only about a third of the players on the Giants' roster now have a salary that is equal to their cap number (I wrote about this in more detail in this previous article/post).

For the sake of reference, here is the list of the 25 players on the Giants now whose cap numbers are equal to their salaries. 14 players are from the 53-man roster, 4 are from Injured Reserve, & 7 are from the Practice Squad:

Simply put, a cap number is basically this:

A player's prorated signing bonus + his base salary + other assorted bonuses (i.e., workout bonus, roster bonus on a given day in the league year). 

Let's use a player already on the roster as an example to help explain. Here's Will Beatty's contractual breakdown courtesy of OverTheCap.com:

Look at Beatty's contract starting from 2013, the first year of the deal that he signed last off-season. He received $12.5 million in guaranteed dollars---the key for any NFL player, especially in their 2nd contracts. Only $2.5 million of this amount counted towards the cap in 2013 (contracts can only be prorated for no more than 5 years under the latest CBA agreement between the NFLPA and owners signed in August of 2011; I think it was for 6 years under the old CBA).

This is why you rarely see contracts for more than 5 years under the new CBA. This spreads the money out over the length of the 5 years---the maximum that a contract can be prorated for---unless the contract is for a a shorter amount, as in the case of someone like Cullen Jenkins, who signed a three-year deal this past off-season with the Giants.

When you add up the roster bonus money (nothing), off-season workout bonus ($50,000), and workout bonuses for 2013, you get to the prorated amount of $2.5 million for this season (workout bonuses and roster bonus are not prorated). That's it for the bonuses.

That leaves the non-guaranteed portion of the deal---the paragraph 5 salary, a.k.a. a player's base salary. This can be structured however the player's agent and team contract officer agree on. In Beatty's case, it happens to be for exactly a cool million in 2013. This brings his cap number to $3,550,000. His salary for 2013 though is different. Counting his bonuses and paragraph 5 money, Beatty earned $13,550,000 in real money in 2013. This is in essence the difference between CASH and CAP dollars, which was another issue of contention between the players and owners that owners gave a little to the players (the only other minor concession being the Minimum Salary Benefit).

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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, and you love pizza. Guess what? There's a box with leftover slices that your roommate liberated from a party he attended the previous night and brought back for you. 

You're starving, and 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, and 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), and 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 and 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 and Corey Webster currently do, 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.

Updated Cap numbers for all players on the Giants as of Dec. 19, 2013

The Giants are last in the NFL in available cap space for the 2013 season, as per the NFLPA's League Cap Report website. They are $41,888 under the cap as of today, with 2 games remaining. This figure, and the cap numbers posted below reflect the 3 roster moves made two nights ago. The only new additions to the list of cap numbers below are for WR Julian Talley--activated off of the Practice Squad, and RB Kendall Gaskins--just signed to the Practice Squad. CB Corey Webster's cap number will remain the same, with him simply going from the 53-man roster to Injured Reserve.

These cap figures are courtesy of the Giants' Team Salary Cap page from OverTheCap.com run by Jason Fitzgerald (he can be followed on Twitter @Jason_OTC). The only player that he and I differed on cap number-wise was DT Markus Kuhn, who spent a large chunk of time this season on the PUP List. I have since corrected this discrepancy on my end, and replaced my incorrect cap number for Kuhn with Jason's (my mistake had to do with the number of weeks Kuhn's salary split was initially counted; see the update at the bottom of this article for an explanation).

Currently, the Giants have 73 players who count towards their adjusted salary cap total of $124,049,396 for the 2013 season, not counting the estimated Dead Money total of $9,016,510 for this season, which I wrote about five days ago (click HERE to read that article). The 73 player breakdown is as follows:

• the players on the 53-man roster.
• the 12 players currently on Injured Reserve.
• the players on the 8-man Practice Squad.

Keep in mind that only a few of these 73 players have cap numbers that are equivalent to their salaries for the 2013 season. As a matter of fact, about only 34% of them do. Many fans often confuse a player's salary with his cap number. The two are not the same. Players who have signed one-year contracts, non-vested veterans (those with less than 4 accrued seasons credited towards free agency) who went undrafted without receiving signing bonuses, and those who were cut at least one time prior to signing or re-signing with the Giants very often have cap numbers that are equivalent to their salaries. That's what these 25 players listed below have in common. They are as follows:

• 14 players on the 53-man roster:
• Andre Brown
• McKenna "Bear" Pascoe
• Keith Rivers
• Trumaine McBride
• Curtis Painter
• John Conner
• Allen Bradford
• Larry Donnell
• Will Hill
• Charles James
• Dallas Reynolds
• Stephen Goodin
• Marcus Dowtin
• Julian Talley

• 4 of the 12 players on season ending Injured Reserve:
• Stevie Brown
• Jim Cordle
• Kris Adams
• Da'Rel Scott

• 7 of the 8 players on the Practice
• The only one whose cap number isn't the same as his salary in this category is OG Eric Herman.
• Herman was drafted by the Giants this year in the 7th round, and received a signing bonus before being cut, clearing waivers, and then being re-signed by the Giants again as a member of their Practice Squad.

Here are the cap numbers for all players on the 53-man roster:

• Note: players whose cap numbers are shaded in gray on these lists have cap numbers that are equivalent to their salaries for the 2013 season.

Here is the positional breakdown for the players on the 53-man roster:

Next, here are the cap numbers for all 12 players on season ending Injured Reserve:

Finally, here is the list of cap numbers for all players on the 8-man Practice Squad:

**NOTE**: UPDATE - 7:40 pm ET, Dec. 21, 2013
I corrected an error I made with respect to calculating Markus Kuhn's cap number. It should be listed as Jason Fitzgerald has it: $429,003. I had his cap number incorrectly listed as being $418,592. My error was in calculating when the split rate of $303,000 stopped being in effect. I should have ended after week 6. Instead, I miscalculated, and had it end after week 7. The full rate of $480,000 kicked in as soon as Kuhn started practicing with the 53-man roster again in week 7. I was off by 1 week in my calculations. It was a careless error on my part.

Salary Cap update for all NFL teams as of Dec. 18, 2013

The Giants rank 32nd out of 32 clubs. The Rams ceded the title of team with the least amount of available cap space to the Giants 3 days ago when they restructured the contract of DE Chris Long to the tune $200,000 to be able to make it through the rest of the regular season with respect to operational cap expenses sometimes known as "fudge money."

As per the NFLPA's League Cap Report website, the Giants are $41,888 under the salary cap. They placed Corey Webster on I.R. two days ago, and promoted WR Julian Talley to the 53-man roster from their Practice Squad, followed by signing RB Kendall Gaskins to fill the Practice Squad vacancy created by the promotion of Talley. Talley's cap number is $47,647. The Giants' cap number prior to these 3 roster moves was $89,535---also last in the league.

The Giants can't make any other roster moves this week without having to be forced to restructure a player contract in order to stay under the cap. As long as nothing freakish happens in practice injury-wise, and they get out of Detroit game reasonably unscathed, they'll make it through the season without having to tweak a contract in order to make it through the last 2 weeks of the season. They'll be able to I.R. someone next week (just 1) since the prorated cost to sign a player will decrease compared to this week. If Detroit lays a physical beating on the Giants, then things could get ugly. 

In a little less than two weeks, the final carryover figures for the 20 non-playoff teams will be in. I'll write up another league-wide team cap report update then in order to reflect those figures. Without further ado, here are the cap numbers for all 32 clubs in the league:



In order of most cap space to least cap space:

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Alphabetical Order:

Official overall Carryover figures from 2012 into 2013 for all NFL clubs

Carryover money is one of 5 variables that factor into a team's Cap spending limit each year (click HERE to read an article I wrote about in June). Besides Carryover cap money, the other four variables are Cap penalties, finalized grievances, LTBE bonuses, & NLTBE bonuses. Of these 5, the most significant from year to year, is Carryover cap money--make note that I did not write Carryover cash money (cap money is different than cash money in most cases). Unless you're the Dallas Cowboys or Washington Redskins, carryover money is the best chance for you to create a competitive advantage vis-a-vis the salary cap. The two aforementioned clubs lost whatever competitive advantage they had by succumbing to cap penalties from the 2010 uncapped season (read about it HERE). Every other team in the league benefited from these penalties that handcuffed the Cowboys and Redskins, except for the Raiders and Saints, who were guilty of minor infractions during the 2010 season. 

Last year, the Giants carried over exactly $1,000,000 from their leftover cap money from the end of the Super Bowl championship season of 2011 into the 2012 regular season. Philadelphia carried over the most, at $23,046,035. The other two NFC East teams finished ahead of the Giants in this category (Washington was 16th & Dallas was 24th). This year the Giants' leftover cap amount that will be carried over into next season will be significantly less. At the moment, the Giants are $41,888 under the cap (as per the NFLPA's League Cap Report website)---the lowest amount in the league. If the season ended today, that would be the amount that is carried over into next season's cap spending limit. They are dangerously close to having to restructure another contract in order to get by these last two games (Snee or Weatherford would be the guys they would go to).

As long as the Giants avoid any rash of injuries the rest of this week in Practice, through the Detroit game--which is questionable since they like to go QB hunting, and into practice next week, they'll be fine with what they have. The giants could only afford to put one player on I.R. this week, which is what they did, but no more than that. Next week, they'll only be able to place one player on Injured Reserve. As long as no more than 1 player is hurt, they'll be okay. It is something to keep an eye on though this week against an angry Detroit team in their own stadium playing for their playoff lives.

To start this season, the Giants had the 26th highest amount of Carryover money out of 32 clubs, with $1,000,000. That places them $5,283,520 below the league mean in this category, with the average being $6,283,520. They'll likely end this season dead last in leftover cap space at $41,888 or less than that figure if they place another player on I.R. next week. Here are this season's Carryover figures:

Greatest carryover amount from 2012 into 2013:

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Alphabetical Order:

Giants make 3 roster moves today that result in less overall team cap space

Tuesday is tryout day in the NFL. It's also the day teams typically make any necessary adjustments to their rosters (sometimes announcements are announced Wednesday mornings when player preparation begins for the next week's game). The Giants are short on WRs this season. They usually carry 6 on their 53-man roster each year. This year they only carried 5. TE Brandon Myers served as a pseudo WR to make that 6. With WR Victor Cruz being hurt in the game against Seattle, and likely to not play again this season, they needed an extra WR to be added onto the roster.

Today the Giants placed CB Corey Webster on Injured Reserve (the 12th Giants player to wind up on I.R. so far this season) in order to make room on the 53-man roster for a WR to take Cruz's place:

Webster had the 4th highest cap number on the Giants' 53-man active roster ($5.345 million) prior to being placed on Injured Reserve, as well as the 5th highest overall cap number on the team counting the players on I.R. already (Chris Snee has a higher cap number at $8.5 million). He does not have a salary split in his contract, sot there are no additional savings the team can recoup by placing him on I.R. as they gained when they placed Shaun Rogers & Brandon Jacobs on Injured Reserve previously. They promoted WR Julian Talley from their Practice Squad to fill the vacancy on the 53-man active roster.

To fill the vacancy on the Practice Squad, they signed RB Kendall Gaskins:

Gaskins is an Undrafted Rookie Free Agent Running Back, who can also play some Fullback--out of the University of Richmond who previously spent time with Buffalo after they signed him as an UDFA after the 2013 Draft. Buffalo cut him at the end of training camp; the Giants tried him out earlier this season, and have brought him into the fold today, signing him to their Practice Squad to fill the vacancy created as a result of Talley being promoted to the 53-man roster. The Giants were short at RB after placing Brandon Jacobs on I.R., so it made sense to sign a RB.

All three of these roster moves made sense today. I was going to post something about a move probably needing to be made earlier today, but I didn't get the chance. This just confirms the thought I had as soon as Cruz went down in the Seattle game. The Giants just need to hope that they don't suffer a multitude of injuries like Pittsburgh did in week 1, for if they do, they'll need to restructure a contract to be able to be to stay under the cap (Snee and/or Weatherford would be the likely candidates again, just as they were on September 4th, and again later on in the season, when Snee agreed to a second contract restructure during the season).

The Giants' strategy at this juncture is to just keep their heads above water from a cap standpoint, so they can get through the season without having restructure anymore contracts and add to their dead money total in 2014. They could only place 1 player on I.R. today without being forced into having to restructure a contract and add to that 2014 Dead Money total. It's all about avoiding injuries at this point in the season from a cap standpoint for the Giants. If they get through practices and the Detroit game unscathed before playing Washington in the season finale on December 29th, then they'll have achieved that objective.

The amount of carryover money that the Giants will have to add onto their 2014 Cap spending total in 2014 will not be anywhere near as much as their total from 2012 that was added onto this year's cap. Last year they added $1,000,000 in carryover money onto their cap spending total. They started the year approximately $490,000 under the cap, and are now going to be $41,888 under the cap, provided that calculations are correct. This will mean that they'll have spent approximately $450,000 of in-season cap dollars in addition to the $1.25 million in a second restructure agreed to by Snee and the Giants on September 30th for $1.25 million. I'm not counting the first restructure of Snee (and Weatherford) agreed to on September 4th that amounted to $1.925 million in order to get under the salary cap the day before the regular season accounting rules went into effect.

The Giants were dead last in available cap space to start the day. They were $89,535 under the cap. Talley's cap number will be $47,647 (the rate of $405,000 for players with no accrued seasons prorated for the two remaining weeks of the 17 game season). Subtracting this figure of $47,647 from $89,535 results in the Giants' present cap number of $41,888. Kendall Gaskins will be paid $12,000 for these last two weeks of the regular season at the league minimum rate of $6,000 per week for Practice Squad players for the 2013 season. As stated above, Talley will earn $47,647 in these final two games. This is a reward for him in a sense since he's been on the Giants' practice Squad since the start of the regular season. Talley is the fourth player on the Giants' 53-man roster that they've promoted from their Practice Squad thus far this season. The other three are CB Charles James, OG/C Stephen Goodin, and LB Marcus Dowtin.

How do the Giants rank with respect to Dead Money in 2014 compared to the rest of the NFL at this point?

I posted the Dead Money figures for this season two days ago. Here are the Dead Money totals thus far for next season. According to the estimated figures below courtesy of OverTheCap.com, the Giants rank 6th out of the 32 clubs in the league for 2014 (they rank 10th for the 2013 Dead Money figures).

• The average amount of Dead Money in 2014 for each club at this point in time according to these figures is $3,809,938
• The Giants have $389,298 in Dead Money.
• This ranks them $3,420,540 below the mean.

• 5 of the 6 players who count towards the Giants' 2014 Dead Money total are off the team entirely now, with only rookie Eric Herman counting towards this total being on the Giants' Practice Squad now.
• There will invariably be more players who are added on to this cut, particularly the ones that I mentioned in the second half of the this article I wrote on Saturday:
• Giants' Dead Money totals for 2013 & 2014 as of Dec. 14, 2013
• As I wrote about in the aforementioned article, Players like Chris Snee ($4.5 M), Corey Webster ($1.25 M), & Brandon Myers ($1.125 M) are almost certain to be additions to the list depicted above.
• That's a total of $6.875 M in additional Dead Money for those three players that will likely be added to the Dead Money total of $389,298 which would bring the total to $7,264,298.

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Keep in mind that Dead Money is NOT the same thing as Cap Savings. To explain the difference between the two in layman's terms, I'll use a food analogy: a crusty old pie box.

• Dead Money is what's leftover from a player's Cap number (the rock-hard part of a pie which can't be scraped out of a pie box) that can't be fully removed from the accounting books.
• Cap Savings, on the other hand, are what you manage to scrape out of a pie box and throw out--which is usually more than what is left over in the pie box.

To summarize: Dead Money is the crust that is stuck to the bottom of an aluminum pan that you can't remove, while Cap Savings are what you can manage to retrieve, and toss out into the garbage.

I'll list the Dead Money figures for 2014 for all 32 clubs below, first in order of the least amount of Dead Money to the greatest amount of Dead Money, and then in alphabetical order for the sake of reference:



In order of least amount of Dead Money to greatest amount of Dead Money:

*****

In alphabetical order: