Restructuring Victor Cruz Contract: Giants Should Offer $10 Million Over 3 Years

Monday morning of free agency signing week kicked off with reports the New York Giants will release wide receiver Victor Cruz unless he takes a pay cut. Some have suggested that Cruz take the league minimum for a 30-year-old veteran, which is a little extreme. Others believe Cruz will definitely restructure and be back with the team in 2016. Head coach Ben McAdoo thinks Cruz will absolutely be back. Cruz has said he would rework his contract to stay. Me? I think he’ll restructure, but not accept the league minimum. So, what’s he worth and what terms will he most likely accept to return?

Victor Cruz signed a 5 year, $43,000,000 contract with the New York Giants prior to the 2013 season, including a $9,500,000 signing bonus, $15,629,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $8,600,000. In 2016, Cruz will earn a base salary of $7,900,000 and a workout bonus of $100,000. Cruz has a cap hit of $9,900,000 while his dead money value is $3,800,000. While Cruz has been on injured reserve the past two seasons, the Giants have taken a salary cap hit of around $15.5 million. If the Giants were to cut Cruz now, they’d take a cap hit of $3.8 million versus releasing him after June 1st and only absorbing $1.9 million.

During Super Bowl week, Cruz stated that he was around 85% with his strength and health. Just last week, Cruz said he was running again and estimated there was an 80% chance he would be in a Giants uniform in 2016.

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I took an “up-to-date look at the value rankings of all active NFL wide receivers in 2015 based on a mathematical comparison of their current salary against their cumulative ‘production points'” according to Spotrac, added up all the annual average salaries, divided by the number of receivers (116), and came up with the figure of $3,353,259 per year. The simplest restructure would be to offer an annual average salary of $3.35 million over the next 3 years.

2014 Base salary: $3,999,000 (only played 6 games = 37.5% of games = $1,499,625)

Adjusted salary: $1,499,625 ($2,499,375 lost)

2015 Base salary: $6,150,000 (0 games played)

Adjusted salary: $0 ($6,150,000 lost)

So, in missing 26 games over the past two seasons, Cruz has cost the Giants more than $8.65 million. His scheduled compensation for the next three seasons is below:

2016 Base salary: $7,900,000

Projected adjustment: Subtract $2,499,375 lost from 2014 = $5.4 million

2017 Base salary: $7,400,000

Projected adjustment: Subtract $6,150,000 lost from 2015 = $1.25 million

2018 Base salary: $8,400,000

Project adjustment: Reduce to average annual salary league-wide to $3.35 million

2016 – 2018 projected salary: $23,700,000 ($7.9 annual average salary)

2016 – 2018 adjusted salary: $3,333,333 million * 3 seasons (2016 – 2018) = $10,000,000

I would imagine the Giants lower the amount of guaranteed money and offer up a ton of incentives and bonuses for catches, yards, and touchdowns, not just snaps. They’d also be wise to negotiate $0 cap hit if he were released in any of those three seasons at any time.

What do you think? Is 3 years at $3.33 million per year for $10 million total appropriate or too much?