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The New York Giants entered the week with just under $500,000 in available salary cap space (assuming the cap ceiling is set at $180 million), but they began clearing more with the release of wide receiver Golden Tate and linebacker David Mayo on Wednesday.
The release of Tate saved the Giants $6.147 million but leaves them with a dead cap hit of $4.7 million. Another $2.3 million in cap space was created by parting ways with Mayo.
So, how much did the Giants save in total? Well, that really depends on who you ask.
Matt Lombardo of FanSided has the Giants with just $4.22 million in salary cap space following the cuts, while Over the Cap has them around $8 million under the cap. Spotrac has an entirely different number themselves, listing the Giants with $4,392,633 (full roster) and $11,892,633 (top 51) in cap space.
Whatever the case may be once the cuts become official, the Giants took the first necessary steps to stabilizing their salary cap in the face of an unstable league number. And there are likely to be several more moves in the coming days.
Currently, the league has its salary cap floor set at between $180 million and $183 million, which is still a substantial decrease from the $198.2 million teams had to work with in 2020. However, there is a possible light at the end of the tunnel with ongoing television negotiations that could lead to a larger cap number in 2021.
For now, the Giants and general manager Dave Gettleman must focus on creating even more space so that they’re able to work with defensive linemen Leonard Williams and Dalvin Tomlinson, as well as the many other free agents they may target later this month.
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