Does NY Giants opening up cap space mean something’s coming?
After GM Dave Gettleman opened up more 2020 cap space on Tuesday, NY Giants fans are left wondering what it means for the immediate future.
The NY Giants surprisingly announced today that they were re-working their two biggest free-agent contracts of the offseason to add about $10M in cap space to their 2020 books. With the team almost completely out of cap space with a long offseason ahead, Dave Gettleman made the decision to switch up the language in Blake Martinez and James Bradbery’s contracts.
The obvious because becomes why did the Giants do this, and will we see a big move in the next few days? Unfortunately for the group of restless fans that want to see the best possible team on the field in 2020, I do not think we will see any major additions despite this new money.
One possibility that would qualify as a ‘big addition’, however, is the long-awaited reunion between the NY Giants and 2019 sack leader Markus Golden. Golden has not found the contract he was hoping for after a monster season and is going so soon have to come to grips with the fact that he may have to take another short-term deal that’s below his real value.
Will he count the Giants out in that regard due to the fact that former defensive coordinator James Bettcher is now gone and he just did that for Big Blue last season? Maybe. Still, the NY Giants know what he brings to the table and if they offer the most money he’s going to agree to a contract with the team.
There’s no telling how far his value has fallen off the original $10M-$12M estimation, but due to how little we’ve heard about him it’s fair to assume he will end up being had for about half of that. Dave Gettleman might have gotten that sense recently and opened up the cap space with that in mind.
There is also the possibility that Gettleman talked to another team looking to unload a talented player to open up their own cap space after not finding what they wanted in free agency. Gettleman has been known to swing trades during his tenure as Giants GM, so this remains a real possibility.
The team still has a gaping need in the pass-rushing department and the embattled GM could be realizing as the days go by that this edge class is not looking too promising in the upcoming draft. However, fans should not be expecting a Jadeveon Clowney type addition as that would eat up most of the $20M or so the team now has.
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The most likely outcome here is that we see one or two minor moves and Gettleman banks the rest of the money for later in the offseason and the 2020 regular season. He’s famously stated that he likes to bring upwards of $20M into a season for emergencies, although that number has always seemed a bit high.