Think of the NFL salary cap as a big bill, and the Giants as your friend combing through the couch cushions for a little extra cash.
The Giants restructured the contracts Tuesday of punter Riley Dixon and tight end Kyle Rudolph to create an additional $350,000 in salary-cap flexibility, according to ESPN’s Field Yates. That makes seven different restructures totaling about $12.2 million in freed cap space since the end of training camp created by workarounds that are a short-term benefit but long-term detriment to a team’s finances.
Before the league year began in March, the Giants also reworked the contracts of cornerback James Bradberry and linebacker Blake Martinez for another $7.5 million in cap space. Bradberry has restructured his contract twice during the calendar year.
The Giants entered Wednesday with less than $500,000 in cap space, per NFL Players Association records. Vice president of football operations Kevin Abrams has long overseen the cap, but director of football operations Ed Triggs is responsible for the day-to-day management. All of it falls under the purview of general manager Dave Gettleman, who has abandoned his cap philosophy laid out in 2019 under win-now pressure.
“You have to take $20 million and put it to the side in a passbook savings account,” Gettleman said. “You want to be in a position to do extensions. If an attractive player is there, you want to have the cap space to make the decision instead of saying, ‘We can’t afford this guy.’ ”
The seven in-season contract redos allow the injury-plagued Giants to operate under the cap while paying the increased salaries for weekly players promoted from the practice squad and other fulfilled bonuses. A game-day call-up with two years or less of experience goes from making $9,200 per week on the practice squad to about $36,000 when on the active roster.
For the player, there is nothing to lose by converting salary into a bonus because the money comes immediately rather than over time and, in some cases, provides better job security by making it harder to become a future cap casualty. The team benefits by prorating the cap charge over the life of the contract rather than in one year.
The decision to tinker with the contracts of Dixon and Rudolph is curious because both underperformers could be cut next season. Pushing money into the future — even relative peanuts in the NFL’s grand scheme — means more dead money down the road.
The Giants are projected to have $4 million in cap space in 2022 but could free up another $8.5 million by cutting Dixon and Rudolph. A recent restructure of receiver Sterling Shepard’s contract lessening future savings looks like a mistake now that he has a torn Achilles.
“Straight adding to future debt,” former NFL general manager Randy Mueller wrote on Twitter. “These are little things done by poor planning that cost teams in the future. It’s not the money, it’s the idea.”