During training camp, most of what we as fans think about is which players are going to start or provide valuable backup and what that suggests about the team’s chances of success in the upcoming season. I’m pretty sure, though, that the New York Giants’ brain trust is also thinking about the team through a financial lens. That means three things:
- How much flexibility the team’s current financial situation gives them to make moves during camp if a dire need arises, whether because of a major injury (heaven forbid) or underperformance of the players at a specific position.
- Which players with significant contracts may be “on the block” in head coach John Harbaugh’s mind as targets to be cut, or to be traded in-season if the team does not perform well.
- Which players might be targets for contract extensions during the season to lock them up for additional years while creating 2027 cap space.
Let’s look at the Giants’ financial situation from each of these perspectives.
Current cap space
The Giants at the moment have $10.1 million in cap space, ninth-lowest in the NFL,
per Over The Cap. That’s not a good look for a team coming off a 4-13 season. The teams in worse cap position were all either playoff teams (Steelers, Packers, Bears, Jaguars, Bills) or playoff wannabees who didn’t get there (Chiefs, Cowboys, Buccaneers).
In other respects the Giants’ cap situation looks better. The Giants are middle of the pack in active cap spending (i.e., top 51 players on the roster) at $262.9M. It’s not more because the Giants carry $28.6M in dead money into the 2026 season. If that sounds bad, consider the Dolphins ($179.2M dead money), the Browns ($116.8M), the Saints ($112.1M), and the Jets ($111.5M). Miami is only spending $112.6 million on players actually on the roster and only has $16.1 million in cap space left to add more.
Half the Giants’ dead money is from the unavoidable Dexter Lawrence breakup, $5 million more from the release of Bobby Okereke, which I think everyone agrees was the right move, and the rest from the releases of (in decreasing order of cost) James Hudson, Jamie Gillan, Chris Board, Graham Gano, Jason Sanders, and Cam Jones.
Veterans at risk
The Giants whose cap hits are the highest for the 2026 season are:
- Paulson Adebo ($24.2M)
- Brian Burns ($21.4M)
- Jevon Holland ($18.5M)
- Darius Slayton ($15.9M)
- Kayvon Thibodeaux ($14.5M)
- Andrew Thomas ($13.0M)
- Jon Runyan Jr. ($11.8M)
- Abdul Carter ($10.3M)
- Arvell Reese ($8.7M)
- Greg Newsome II ($8M)
- Malik Nabers ($8.0M)
- Chauncey Golston ($6.9M)
Of those, Burns, Thomas, Carter, Reese, and Nabers are surely not going anywhere, strictly from the standpoint of value to the team. As for the rest, from the financial standpoint, all of them would incur a significant dead money hit in 2027 if released this season. The only ones who would actually save money against the 2026 cap if released are Runyan ($9.25M) and Newsome ($5M). Runyan and Newsome are also the players in the group above with the smallest dead money hits in 2027 if cut ($2.5M and $3.0M respectively). Thus, these two seem to be the players most at risk of being released if they do not perform up to Harbaugh’s standards in camp, or if they are simply beaten out by other players.
Creating cap space with contract extensions
As I have complained several times on these pages, general manager Joe Schoen doesn’t like to use void years to create cap space. He has been one of only a few GMs not to take advantage of the void year loophole to add talent.
That said, what Schoen does like to do – a lot – is to convert salary to a signing bonus whose cap accounting is spread out over the life of the contract. It’s the equivalent of tiptoeing right up to the void year line but not crossing it. The player doesn’t care because the signing bonus cash is paid up front. Among current Giants:
- Andrew Thomas signed a five-year, $117.5 million contract extension in 2023. Thus far his contract has incurred cap charges of only $9.3M, $19.9M, and $9.3M in 2023, 2024, and 2025 because the cap charge for his $15 million signing bonus was spread over several years. This year, for the third consecutive season, Schoen converted part of Thomas’ salary ($14.8M) into a signing bonus to free up $11.0 million in cap space. The good news is that Thomas’ 2026 cap hit is now only $13 million. The bad news is that by deferring the cap hits, Thomas’ cap hits for 2027-2029 will now be $29.95M, $29.95M, and $29.62M. Schoen is paying those amounts in cheaper dollars since the NFL salary cap has risen every year except after the pandemic, but the you-know-what will hit the fan starting next season. That’s the price Schoen pays for eschewing void years. Thomas has had a troubling injury history, having played in only 10, 6, and 13 games the past three seasons. When healthy, though, he is one of the top few left tackles in the NFL. He’s also still only 27 years old. Don’t be surprised if Schoen tries to sign Thomas to a contract extension in mid-season to alleviate those $29M+ cap hits that are coming via further signing bonus cap sleight-of-hand.
- Brian Burns’ story is almost identical to Thomas’. Burns signed a 5-year, $141 million contract with the Giants as part of the trade that brought him here. He incurred cap hits of only $15.5M and $17.8M his first two seasons as a Giant. In 2025, though, Schoen converted $16 million of Burns’ salary into a prorated signing bonus to free up up $12 million of cap space. In 2026, once again Schoen played the same game, converting $22.75M of salary into a signing bonus for cap purposes. The bad news is that in 2027 and 2028, Burns’ cap hit will now be $44.1 million. That type of cap hit can’t be swallowed easily. Burns isn’t quite at Thomas’ level of excellence, but he is probably in no worse than the second tier of edge defenders behind players such as Myles Garrtt, Micah Parsons, Maxx Crosby, etc. Thus, look for Schoen to also try to sign Burns to a contract extension during the season and use the same signing bonus strategy to lessen those $44.1 million cap hits.
- Adebo’s contract is tied for 14th-highest among NFL cornerbacks. It’s only for three years, but it carries the largest cap hit of any Giant ($24.2 million) this season, and next season’s $20.3 million cap hit is nothing to sneeze at. Unlike Thomas and Burns, Adebo has really only had one excellent NFL season (2023). He was all right as the Giants’ CB1 last year, but with one interception and five pass breakups, he wasn’t an impact player. There is little the Giants can do with his contract situation this year. His play has not earned him an extension, and the Giants would lose $5.7M by cutting him while incurring $29.9M of dead money. The Giants just have to hope that Adebo returns to his 2023 form in Dennard Wilson’s defense, which might convince them to offer a contract extension. If not, then the Giants will probably swallow $6.3 million of dead money in 2027 to release him and save $14 million of cap space.
- Jevon Holland is in a somewhat similar situation. He had two elite seasons in Miami but two mediocre ones as well, and his first Giants season was also nondescript. He carries an $18.5 million cap hit this year and $18.9 million next year, and the Giants can save $13.8 million by cutting him in 2027, swallowing $5 million in dead money to do so. But if he bounces back, an extension is a possibility.
- Darius Slayton is probably in the most precarious future situation of anyone on the list. His $15.9 million 2026 cap hit is unavoidable, because almost all of it would be dead money if he is released. In 2027 the Giants could save $10 million against the cap, with only $3M in dead money, by releasing him. Add to that the plethora of wide receivers in training camp this summer. If Slayton falls on the depth chart and sees much less playing time, he’s surely a goner in 2027. On the other hand, if his recently revealed 2025 sports hernia is fully healed and he becomes entrenched as WR2, an extension in 2027 isn’t out of the question.
Maximum contract restructure potential
All that being said, if the Giants want or need to make a move to acquire a player of non-negligible cost this season, their two options, per Over The Cap, are:
Simple restructure: This is the type of restructure that Schoen has been doing consistently, converting salary to signing bonus within the duration of existing contracts. Schoen could open up $21.8M of cap space this way unilaterally, without the affected players’ permission because the restructure gets the player more of his cash up front.
Maximum restructure: If Schoen needed more money, he’d have no choice but to extend existing players on the roster or add void years to their contracts. He could gain as much as $65.9M in cap space this way. The individual players with the greatest maximum restructure potential via void years are Adebo ($8.1M), Holland ($5.9), Slayton ($5.6M), and Chauncey Golston ($2.0M). For extensions, the biggest current cap savings would be for Adebo ($13.0M), Kayvon Thibodeaux ($10.8M), Holland ($9.4M), Slayton ($9M), or Runyan ($6.4M). It’s not clear that Schoen could swallow taking on void years or contract extensions for any of those players unless they perform better in 2026 than in 2025, except possibly Thibodeaux. And it couldn’t be done without the player’s consent.
Let’s imagine instead that, armed with his $21.8 million simple restructure potential, some clearly desirable player suddenly becomes available because he wants to be traded. Just to pick a random name out of a hat, let’s say that player is Vita Vea 🙂 Vea is in the final year of his 4-year, $71 million contract with Tampa Bay and has not been able to agree on an extension. He has a cap number of $22.19M this year, just a bit more more than Schoen’s simple restructure limit of $21.8M, i.e., his existing contract can’t fit within the Giants’ existing 2026 finances. He also has $2.28M in void year money to be accounted for in 2027. Thus, Schoen couldn’t just take on the contract and add the extension that Vea seeks (assuming that the trade only involved sending draft picks and and not players to Tampa Bay). He might fit it in by cutting multiple low cost players at the back of the current roster, but there’s only so much of that you can do while not jeopardizing depth and special teams. Otherwise, he would have no choice but to do a maximum restructure of Vea’s current contract, using either void years or the new contract years in the extension or both to satisfy the player while staying within the cap.
That’s the type of thing Howie Roseman does all the time. I don’t think the Eagles need another IDL, though.
