1. C Spencer Pulley
Conventional wisdom would reason that Spencer Pulley should be the leader in the clubhouse to be the starter at center for the NY Giants in 2020, but for a variety of factors, he’s more likely to be a cap casualty.
Factor one is that the NY Giants have a number of intriguing – yet inexperienced – options that are also vying for the starting center gig that even though they haven’t played a snap at the position at the NFL level have a much higher ceiling than Pulley due to his mediocre play over his career.
Dave Gettleman and the NY Giants know they are in a rebuilding year, so it should be far more attractive to them to give one of the youngsters looking to make the move to the pivot position a shot over Pulley who has proven himself to be not much more than a replacement-level player at best.
Factor number two is that the team stands to gain the most cap space out of any of the cap casualty candidates (again, there aren’t many) as none of his $2.75M 2020 salary is guaranteed.
Pulley started nine games at center for the NY Giants in 2018 and the results weren’t great as he seemed to be a weak link on an incredibly weak line.
While that $2.75M might not seem like much money to worry about now, it will be a much different situation at the end of the offseason when the team is scrambling to scrum up any cap space they can to meet Gettleman’s ’emergency in season fund’.
For those reasons, Spencer Pulley should find himself on the chopping block by the end of preseason play, barring an unbelievable training camp and preseason.
Cap savings: $2.75M
Chance he’s cut: 70%