Even though the immediate reaction amongst NY Giants fans after Nate Solder opted-out has been “spend, spend, spend”, the team should be prudent and stick to its rebuilding mindset.
Listen, I’d be lying if I said I was the only NY Giants fans that didn’t fully understand the cap ramifications of Nate Solder opting-out of the 2020 season, initially.
I mean, these provisions were just recently hammered out and re-worked all within the last week and we’ve had so many COVID-19 provisions passing around the league it began hard to keep up with it all.
But now that we know – basically – what the cap ramifications will be for the NY Giants when it comes to the veteran opting out and effectively ‘tolling’ (pushing back) his contract to the 2021 season rather than just having his $19.5 2020 salary come off the books, Big Blue needs to earmark some of their 2020 ‘savings’ to address that oncoming problem in 2021 to properly navigate this situation.
Obviously, the initial reaction amongst most NY Giants fans the moment they found out they’d be gaining some $10-13$M in 2020 salary cap “savings”, depending on who you ask as the situation, becomes trickier when considering he’s already been paid a $3M bonus for 2020, but now that we know most of the contract is just being kicked further down the road the team needs to set aside most of that money to prepare with this same ordeal in 2021.
It’s a fair first reaction from a NY Giants fan base with guys like Jadeveon Clowney and Everson Griffen still out there, but unlike in 2018, the brass needs to fully commit to rebuilding.
Signing one of those two premium vet pass rushers may help some for 2020 – when the team shouldn’t have many playoff aspirations – but it’ll add a huge layer of uncertainty to their 2021 cap situation when in a time where league experts are projecting the 2021 cap will actually go down due to lost 2020 league revenues on fans not attending games.
Solder will reel in an extra 350K for 2020 as qualifying as a “high risk” opt-out, but since the NY Giants only really “save” $3M in 2021 cap flexibility to due that paid bonus and the contract now effectively being spread out over three years, it’s not like this is some new found $19M lump sum — the team will still have to pay the piper, it’s just a matter of when now.
The biggest win for Big Blue in all of this is that Andrew Thomas will now have no one in his way when it comes to taking over as the NY Giants’ left tackle right out of the gates, something that should have always been the case but was “50/50” according to a recent Jordan Raanan of ESPN article.
Additionally, now the brass will get a look at a much younger, and probably just as good if not better, player at the right tackle position in 2020 as well, as Dave Gettleman heavily invested in the tackle position through the draft and free agency this offseason.
Having Nate Solder start off the year as the team’s left tackle after performing worse than any other tackle in the NFL in 2019 while investing the #4 overall pick on a tackle would have been a bad look and a horrific football move from a rebuilding standpoint.
Now, Thomas will be penciled in as the day one starter and get to take his lumps – should there be any – in a rebuilding year at left tackle, rather than in 2021 when the team has prospects to actually be good.
He also won’t have to learn how to play two positions over two years as he breaks into the league which was always a silly proposition.
The bottom line is, when you draft a tackle at #4 you almost always slide them right into the left tackle position; the only scenarios where it’d make sense not to is if the team already had a terrific left tackle or had serious playoff aspirations that a struggling rookie left tackle could hamper.
The NY Giants aren’t in either position, so it’s a big win that Solder decided to make this move and, in turn, name Andrew Thomas as the team’s left tackle in 2020 and hopefully beyond, while getting to take a look at several youngsters at right tackle, as well.
So, what should the NY Giants do with Nate Solder in 2021?
To me this one is simple; the NY Giants should designate Nate Solder as a post-June 1st cut in 2021, kind of like they should have done this year to get out from under this mess in the least messy way possible.
In essence, designating Solder as a post-June 1st cut would allow the NY Giants to spread his now $16.4M 2021 cap hit (it was almost $20M before, but paying that offseason bonus lowered it) over two seasons, instead of taking the brunt of a $13M dead cap hit in 2021 like they were due to if they had outright released him in 2020.
The salary cap in 2021 is really up in the air in the moment, as reliable salary cap websites such as Spotrac are using the $175M number the NFL and NFLPA have described as the salary cap floor as the actual salary cap which is a realistic scenario with all the potential lost revenue upcoming if a 2020 season is played.
Even after the Solder news happened, the NY Giants are just $7M under the 2021 cap of $175M (l think Spotrac still has some adjusting to do on those figures), although everyone around the NFL is hoping that the season goes better than expected from a revenue standpoint and the cap can at least stay put at around $200M, giving the NY Giants $32M in 2021 cap before even moving on from high-priced vets such as Solder.
I do believe GM Dave Gettleman and head coach Joe Judge will take this prudent, smart approach here and realize this only truly opens up a few million dollars in cap space for 2020. If they want to use the small amount of real cap savings on a veteran at a key position, I have no problem with that.
But unloading a monster one-year deal on a free agent veteran would put this team in a very precarious situation in 2021, especially if they didn’t end up choosing to designate Solder as a post-June 1st cut.
Using that provision would allow the NY Giants to swallow dead cap hits of about $5M over 2021 and 2022, instead of $10M in 2021, allowing them to easier navigate the situation and absorb the damage over two years.
The bottom line is, though, Nate Solder is still due to be paid every guaranteed dollar he was set to be paid before he opted out, so the NY Giants need to have a plan here.
Unless the organization hits the jackpot and Solder decides to forgo his millions of incoming dollars and retires to focus on his family full-time next season, they’ll need to take the prudent and frugal approach here and look out for the long-term interests of the organization.
While adding an Everson Griffen or Jadeveon Clowney in 2020 would make a splash and boost fan morale, it’d hamper the team significantly in 2021 which needs to be avoided at all costs.