Giants Reportedly in Shaky Cap Shape for 2012

Ready or not, free agency is abutting to descend upon us. In addition, with 20 unrestricted free agents, the Giants appear likely to focus on bringing as many of their own back rather than making a splash in the open market.

I’ve received a lot of questions bout the cap, possible restructures, etc. so I’m going to devote this space toward addressing all of that as best as I can.

First let’s start with the obvious question, and that is how much cap space the Giants actually have.

The answer, not much. I know about the ProFootballTalk.com report in which the numbers they got hold of said the Giants were over the cap by $3.8M, but the disclaimer in that report said that transactions occurring after 4:00 p.m. ET on Friday, March 9 were not reflected. Therefore, there’s no way of knowing if the Giants filed the Brandon Jacobs and Eli Manning transactions before or after that stated cutoff.

Frankly, I never really put a whole lot of stock in what’s reported when it comes to the Giants salary cap because I keep my own database to see what each player’s estimated cap value is. While I’m sure I don’t have the number right on the nose, I’m confident enough in what I put together.

So where do they stand? I have estimated the Giants as being UNDER the $120.6 million cap with a figure of $3.156M*.

You’ll note the asterisk. There are some variables here that I need to make clear.

First, I do not know if the Giants are planning to file to receive a credit on the $1.07 million of cap space that was left over from last year (this is a change in the new CBA).

Teams can file to receive 100 percent of any cap space left over from the previous league year, and, in my opinion, any team that doesn’t take advantage of that provision is foolish. While I expect the Giants to do that and have accounted for that in my calculation, it’s not yet official which could be why the reported numbers by larger news outlets vary.

Second, I’m not quite sure how much must be set aside for the rookie pool, so I estimated what I think that figure will be – and I suspect my estimate is low.

Last year, the Giants had to devote between $4.323M and $4.755M to their draft class and undrafted rookie free agents. In addition, last year the Giants had nine picks (the rookie allocation pool is based on the total number of picks),

This year the Giants will have at least seven picks; they could receive more if they are given any compensation picks based on last year’s free agent losses. Therefore, I based my estimate on 1) the fact that the Giants will be drafting last in the first round and 2) seven picks.

I factored in the $1.6M that the Giants (and 26 other NFL teams) will be getting courtesy of the Redskins and Cowboys’ attempt to circumvent the rules that prohibited teams from heavily front-loading contracts during the 2010 uncapped year.

Is your head hurting you yet? If not, wait — this is just the opening act.