We are three days away from the official start of the 2026 NFL regular season, and the New York Giants are already dealing with salary cap issues.
Big Blue's wheeling and dealing this offseason cost them all of their cap space, and more, to the point where they are reportedly $1.3 million over the cap as we head into the regular season. They'll need to do some financial housekeeping this week to stay in compliance.
From Dan Duggan of The Athletic:
The Giants are $1.3M over the cap, according to the NFLPA database. They will need to be under by Wednesday because top 51 accounting ends when the season starts.
They don't need to do anything dramatic since they only need a few million to operate (at least for now). Paulson Adebo, Jevon Holland, Darius
Slayton and Jon Runyan have the biggest base salaries for a restructure. It doesn't really matter who they restructure, but Schoen has typically avoided restructures on possible cap casualties, so from that group, I suspect Holland will be first up.
Schoen teased the signing of a veteran defensive lineman to the practice squad next week (don't think Jihad Ward's IG video was an announcement). They have the maximum of six veterans on their practice squad, so they'd need to cut someone from this group — WR Braxton Berrios, WR Jalin Hyatt, WR Charlie Jones, OL Darian Kinnard, DL Josh Tupou, LB Malik Harrison — to add another vet. The other option would be signing someone from that group (Berrios?) to the active roster to make room for another P-squad vet.
The salary cap rules are tricky. After the regular season, when teams can expand their rosters to 90 players, only the Top 51 salaries count against the cap. Teams tend to overspend and worry about tidying up the loose ends after the smoke clears.
Once the 53-man roster is set, every dime spent goes against the cap, and not just the players on the active roster. The practice squad, players on injured reserve (IR) and the physically unable to perform (PUP) list, and any leftover dead money from players who were traded or released all count against the cap.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: New York Giants over the salary cap as regular season nears
