The New York Giants are tapped out. Salary cap-wise, that is. According to NFL reporter Field Yates, the Giants have the least amount of available cap space in the league with the season beginning this week.
Yates is reporting the Giants have $457,948 in available cap space at the moment, which is last among the 32 teams in the NFL. By contrast, the Indianapolis Colts have the most, which is over $42 million.
But spotrac.com and overthgcap.com are showing the situation is more dire. Spotrac has the Giants in the red for over $715,271 while OTC is listing their deficit at $3,019,716.
This is mainly due to the exorbitant amount of dead money ($34.2 million) the team chose to carry this season as a result of eating part of the contracts of Odell Beckham Jr., Olivier Vernon and others.
The other number looming over them is their injured reserve figure ($8.2 million) and let’s not forget they have to carry Golden Tate’s $6.2 million cap hit while he’s on suspension.
The Giants can get themselves flush by waiving some of the 18 players they have on injured reserve. That may have already been done and not publicly reported since Yates’ is showing them in the black while the two websites are still reflecting negative figures.
Either way, they won’t enough money to sign any significant free agent in-season, something general manager Dave Gettleman is accustomed to doing.
That is, unless they restructure some veteran contracts, but looking at the roster, there’s not a lot of wiggle room as most of the higher-paid players on the team have already restructured their deals either this year or last.
This is a 2019 specific problem for the Giants. Next year, they’ll be swimming in cap space.
