Updated list of 2013 cap numbers for all Giants players as well as Dead money amount for 2013

Here are the cap numbers for the players on the 53-man roster, Injured Reserve (13), & the Practice Squad (8) reflecting the 3 roster moves that were made yesterday. All figures are courtesy of the Giants' salary cap page on OverTheCap.com, with 3 calculated by me (Cooper Taylor, Eric Herman, & Travis Howard):

*Note(s):
1 - Players whose cap numbers are shaded in gray have cap numbers that are equal to their salaries.

2 - As of last night, I calculated the Giants to be $24,946 under the cap (based on the NFLPA's public salary cap figures) as a result of the 3 roster moves they made yesterday.

3 - Five of the players who are the 53-man roster now have been promoted from the Giants' Practice Squad: Charles James, Stephen Goodin, Marcus Dowtin, Julian Taley, & Eric Herman.

4 - Three of the players who are the 53-man roster now have been signed as Free Agents during the season: John Conner, Peyton Hillis, & Dallas Reynolds.

5 - Four players that I know of currently on the Giants' 53-man roster now have salary splits in their contracts this season: Terrell Thomas, Markus Kuhn, Ryan Nassib, & Michael Cox.



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

The positional breakdown for these 53 players is as follows:

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Here are the updated cap numbers for the 13 players on Injured Reserve:

*Note(s):
1 - Players whose cap numbers are shaded in gray have cap numbers that are equal to their salaries.
2 - Two players on Injured Reserve now were signed as Free Agents during the season: Brandon Jacobs & Da'Rel Scott

• in Scott's case, he was on the 53-man roster to start the season, was waived, re-signed to 53-man roster again, then waived/injured, & then placed on Injured Reserve).

3 - Three players on Injured Reserve now have salary splits in their contracts this season: Shaun Rogers, Brandon Jacobs, & Cooper Taylor.

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Here are the updated cap numbers for the players on the 8-man Practice Squad:

*Note(s):
1 - players whose cap numbers are shaded in gray have cap numbers that are equal to their salaries; as of now, all of the players presently on the Practice Squad fall into this category.

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The Giants have 26 out of 74 players on the team now (counting the players on the 53-man roster, the 13 players Injured Reserve, & the players on the 8-man Practice Squad) who currently have salaries equivalent to their cap numbers (roughly 35%). Out of these 26 players, 14 are on the 53-man roster, 4 are on Injured Reserve, & 8 are on the Practice Squad (all 8 on the Practice Squad have cap numbers equal to their salaries). The aforementioned figures are as follows:

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The Giants' Dead Money total for 2013 has now been adjusted to be $9,112,510 (this should be reflected soon on the Giants' team salary cap page on OverTheCap.com). Eric Herman's Practice Squad cap number/salary up until yesterday of $96,000 has been added to that amount. 40 players are listed below for the Giants' Dead Money total this season. Their breakdown is as follows:

• 31 of them are off the team completely
• 6 are currently on the 53-man roster
• 2 are currently on the Practice Squad
• 1 is on Injured Reserve

The Dead Money amounts for all 40 of these players, as well as their status with the team, are as follows:

I'll wait until next week, when the season is over, to make an entry on what the Giants' final cap numbers and Dead Money amount for the 2013 season will turn out being. If I had to say now though if I think the figures listed above will turn out to be the last updates of the season for cap numbers and dead money amounts, then I'd say that they would.

When is the earliest that the Giants can move away from the Will Beatty contract?

I was asked this question on BigBlueInteractive.com, and here is my reply: 

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Let's look at Beatty's contract first (who I mockingly have referred to this season as Will "Beat Me"):

Source: Will Beatty's salary cap page courtesy of OverTheCap.com

The Giants would actually lose cap space if they released Beatty in standard fashion next year; however, if they make him a June 1st cut in the 2015 off-season, then that would be the earliest that they would be able to divest themselves of him, and gain cap space instead of losing it, which is what occurs when cutting players early on after they've signed a new contract. In such a scenario, the Giants would gain $3,050,000 in cap room in 2015, spreading out Dead money on the books in two year: $2,500,000 in 2014, & $5,000,000 in 2015.

The scenario outlined above would be the first and earliest exit strategy away from Beatty, and would only occur if Beatty is an absolute wreck and waste of space cap-wise and roster-wise. He would basically have to turn into the Left Tackle version of Rick Ankiel (Ankiel was a baseball pitcher who suddenly began throwing wild pitches all over the place and never regained his previous form).

While a critic of Beatty's, I acknowledge that he isn't a complete waste of a roster spot---yet. I'd give him the next two years, and see what return the Giants could get on their investment. If he completely tanks, then you use the strategy above. If he's bad as opposed to embarrassingly bad, and you have a replacement on roster (a first round pick in 2014 in this scenario), then I'd keep him through 2015 after he's had a chance to compete for his job one last time.

A more reasonable approach would be to cut him after the 2015 season. As a normal cut that year, the Giants would stand to gain $4,175,000 in cap room for 2016 with $5 million remaining on the cap accounting books as Dead Money in one shot through the 2016 season.

Another way to do it would be to cut him after the 2015 season, not as a normal cut, but as a post-June 1st cut. In that scenario, the Giants would gain $6,675,000 in cap room for the 2016 season, leaving Dead Money to be spread out over the next two years, instead of just one, in the amounts of $2.5 million in 2016 & another $2.5 million in 2017.

Here's the bottom line: you don't reinforce a mistake by not seizing the opportunity to grab a quality left Tackle in the first round of the 2014 draft approximately 4 and a half months from now. You're not married to Beatty in a cap sense for any longer than a year at minimum (probably two). If the tackle is there, and he is the best player available that fits a need, then you take him. Let Beatty compete, and prove his worth. If he fails, then you can get rid of him after the 2014 or 2015 seasons.

Keep in mind that the Giants can also use Pugh's versatility on the OL, just as Diehl's was used throughout his career (especially in his earlier years). You could take advantage of Pugh's versatility, and move him to Guard for a year, or longer (keep in mind Pugh played Left Tackle throughout most of his collegiate career at Syracuse), in case you need to get by for a season with the draft pick and Beatty playing opposite each other at the two Tackle positions. Of course, it would be better to leave Pugh alone at RT, but I'm throwing that option out there since the Giants did when they drafted him. Hopefully Pugh stays right where he is.

Beatty's going to be here on the roster for at least another year--probably two--but this does not mean that you use his cap hit as a crux to handing him a job that he never really earned in the first place due to the lack of competition that he had at Left Tackle from within the roster, the high price of other starting Left Tackles in Free Agency in 2012, and the Giants' overall woes elsewhere on their OL at the conclusion of the 2012 season. That's basically the whole "you are on this council, but we do not grant you the rank of master" argument that Star Wars geeks are familiar with regarding young emo Anakin Skywalker.

Beatty is on this roster, but it doesn't mean he has to be handed a starting job just because of of his high cap number. This is especially dangerous since Beatty protects Eli's blind side. This is an issue that will be worth keeping an eye on going forward, especially if the Giants actually do go ahead and draft a Left Tackle (or even a Right Tackle in case Pugh is moved to OLT) in the first or second round of the upcoming draft in May of 2014.

Giants make 3 roster moves today that affect their team salary cap number

This afternoon the Giants made 3 roster moves, with one new player being added to the team, that slightly decreased the available space that they have under the cap. These transactions did not necessitate restructuring a player contract. The 3 roster moves are as follows:

These moves indicate that the Giants are in need of help depth-wise with respect to the Offensive Line, and that they're comfortable at RB going into the season finale against the Redskins since they didn't promote RB Kendall Gaskins from their Practice Squad.

Fortunately for the Giants, this decrease in cap space wasn't as large as expected. This was due to the Giants placing Safety Cooper Taylor on Injured Reserve (I.R.). Taylor's salary split actually gave the Giants an added $6,882 in cap space to work with. It may not sound like much, but considering where the Giants are with respect to the cap, it is definitely helpful. Since Taylor was a fifth round pick in this past year's draft, he had a salary split that kicked in once he was placed on I.R. This decreased the value of his overall 2013 cap number from $451,813 (as per OverTheCap.com) to $444,931. Here is how I arrived at that figure:

Salary Splits can help teams to lessen the blow of cap hits when roster moves are processed through the league office in certain situations, if needed. I should have pointed this out in my article yesterday, but it slipped my mind. Players who the Giants placed on I.R. this season who have salary splits are Brandon Jacobs, Shaun Rogers, and now Cooper Taylor. The Giants benefited from all of these moves cap room-wise. Team cap managers always have a list of these player who they know can lessen a team's overall cap burden if they're forced to put a player on I.R. at certain points throughout the season.

Markus Kuhn's cap number also changed as a result of a salary split when he went on the PUP list to start the season, giving the Giants extra cap room to work with (it went form being $491,444 to being $429,003 after he was placed on the PUP list). The splits correspond to a player's paragraph 5 salary (a.k.a. base salary). They are included in the media section of my Twitter account (@NYGCapCentral), as well as in the table below:

Taylor's split of $288,000 (down) corresponds to the $405,000 amount (up) for the 2013 season for players with no accrued seasons towards free agency. Taylor's cap number was adjusted to include the proration of the amount of $288,000 for this single week (1 divided by 17 multiplied by $288,000 added to the previous 16 weeks prorated at the full base salary amount of $405,000). If the Giants needed more help to make room under the cap without restructuring a contract, they would have placed other players on I.R. who have salary splits that are dinged up and are on the injury report now. CB Terrell Thomas & TE Adrien Robinson are players who fit into that category.

The odds are that they're probably done with placing players on I.R. though, as Patricia Traina points out, since they would have done so today if they needed to. As things stand right now, the Giants wouldn't have to restructure a contract in order to add another player to their 53-man roster after placing another player on I.R. and then signing somebody else to the Practice Squad (they have just enough to get by making one more move if it was necessary). This is probably all a moot point since It doesn't look like they will. Wednesday is "turn the page" day in the NFL anyway in terms of player preparation, so barring any unforeseen freak injuries in practice the rest of the week, these 3 roster moves will likely wind up being the final in-season adjustments to the Giants' final 53-man roster--and salary cap--this ill-fated season.

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In summary, and to reiterate, the cap numbers for (OG) Eric Herman, (CB) Travis Howard, & (S) Cooper Taylor are as follows:

• $23,824 for Herman (after being promoted to the 53-man roster)
• Herman is the 5th player to be promoted from the Giants' Practice Squad this year onto the 53-man roster.
• $6,000 for Howard (after being signed to the Practice Squad)
• Howard spent some time with New England on their Practice Squad after being released by Houston earlier this summer.
• $444,931 for Taylor after being placed on I.R.
• This was adjusted from being $451,813 before he was placed on I.R.
• It turns this roster move gave the Giants an extra $6,882 to work with.

The Giants' cap number, according to the figures reflected by the NFLPA's League Cap Report website, should decrease $16,942 as a result of these 3 moves. If my math is right, they should go form being $41,888 under the cap, to now being $24,947 under it. I'll update the Giants' players cap numbers and list them here tomorrow, after I've gone over them again.

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: