Best & Worst Contracts: The New York Giants

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A few weeks ago Jason LaCanfora published a list of best and worst contracts in the NFL so I thought it might make a good idea for us to do the same here at OTC, with a team by team approach. I’ll try to be a bit more analytical in terms of why money was paid and how it fits in the market, but the general premise is the same. The one key difference is outside of restructured rookie contracts under the old CBA we will only use veteran contracts as there is a big difference between best draft picks and best contracts.  Please note that there is a difference between a bad player and a bad contract when discussing some of the selections. Clicking on a players name will take you to his salary cap page.

Justin TuckBest Contract: Justin Tuck

I had a very difficult time coming up with this decision. The Giants rework contracts so often that sometimes the deals get so bad at the backend that a good deal kind of goes bad. I considered Chris Snee, who has been a relative bargain at Guard for many years, but yearly restructures have left the Giants with a bad 2013 and 2014 cap scenario with Snee. Cullen Jenkins is a pretty good deal for a one year flier on a player that can provide an interior pass rush and I could see putting him in this position, but Tucks’ is a bigger contract and stands out from all the others with regards to contract treatment.

While Tuck struggled to make an impact last season and is looked at negatively right now with his $6.15 million dollar cap charge, that is simply a Giants decision to allow him to play things out at that figure. The Giants had structured his deal so that he would only carry a $1.5 million dollar cap hit if released this year. They never jumped back in on him to raise that charge when restructuring every other player around him, even as he came off a Pro Bowl in 2010. Normally the low dead money is the kind of leverage that would lead to a paycut if the team chose to use their leverage that way.

From an annual value perspective Tuck’s $6.2 million per year number is a tremendous bargain at the position. As a key backup in the Giants 2007 season in which he produced 10 sacks, the Giants pounced on the opportunity to re-sign Tuck, who they knew would likely be a starter in 2008, during their Super Bowl run. Tuck had one year remaining on his rookie contract, slated to pay him just $520,000, which the Giants used to help negotiate favorable terms. Usually a 10 sack season leads to big contracts or at least big deals with numerous incentives, neither of which was the case with Tuck, whose contract contained modest escalators on the backend for Pro Bowls and sacks, of which just $1 million were earned.

Over the life of the contract Tuck made two Pro Bowls and had two 10+ sack seasons. The decision to extend a year early allowed the Giants to smooth out the cap hits to their advantage. Tuck never had a cap charge over $7.65 million and most years his cap charge was around $5 million. Most importantly they never made the deal worse, which they did with many other deals. Philosophically this may be part of the Giants internal visions, locking up pass rushers young and continuing to draft them so they can move on as the age and health becomes more of a concern. Regardless of the reasoning the Giants got a great deal with Tuck and if they choose to part ways this summer they will create $4.5 million in cap room with no further damage in 2014.

Corey WebsterWorst Contract: Corey Webster

While Webster did take a paycut this year to remain a Giant, even the paycut just added to the poor extension they signed Webster to back in 2008. Webster, who had never been selected to a Pro Bowl, was signed to a 5 year extension worth $8.7 million a year, at the time one of the most expensive deals at the position. His $29.5 million three year payout was close to the top of the NFL corner market and Webster was never anywhere near that level of player. Since then Webster has been an ok starter until seemingly coming apart at the seams last season.

The Giants made the backend of Webster’s deal more difficult to work with by converting $3.6 million of salary in 2009 and $3 million in salary in 2011 to prorated bonuses to help their salary cap situation. As a result of the contract structure, which already paid Webster a $5.25 million dollar signing bonus, his cap charges in 2012 and 2013 were over $9 million a year and his dead money in the final year of a 5 year deal totaled $2.59 million.

The Giants would go on to make a curious decision to keep Webster in the fold in 2013 by reducing his $7 million dollar cash salary to $4.25 million, with $2.5 million fully guaranteed. Webster will still carry a cap charge over $5 million on the season, a number the Giants kept artificially low by getting into the void year contract structure that has compromised teams such as their rivals the Dallas Cowboys. The Giants have started to dip their toe into this contract structure with some lower tier talent due to salary cap problems and need to be careful to not extend the concept much further. As a result Webster, who ranked 111th in coverage by Pro Football Focus in 2012, will leave the Giants with $1.25 million in dead money next season when his contract voids.

Check out Our Other Best & Worst Contract Articles

AFC East: Buffalo BillsMiami DolphinsNew England PatriotsNew York Jets

AFC North: Baltimore RavensCincinnati BengalsCleveland BrownsPittsburgh Steelers

AFC South: Houston TexansIndianapolis ColtsJacksonville JaguarsTennessee Titans

AFC West: Denver BroncosKansas City ChiefsOakland RaidersSan Diego Chargers

NFC East: Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles (July 14)

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Update on Corey Webster’s Restructure – Giants Tack on Voidable Season

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The other day, I wrote an article on the moves the Giants made with Corey Webster and David Baas (that article can be found by clicking here). For those who don’t want to revisit the whole story, this was the portion written about Webster:

“First, let’s take a look at Webster. 2013 will be the final season of a five-year extension he signed with the Giants in December 2008. His base salary was originally set at $7 million for this season while various other bonuses brought his cap hit to $9.845 million. All Webster agreed to do here was reduce his base salary to $4 million; there’s no real restructure, only a reduction in money for Webster. No additional cap hits come into play for the Giants and as a result, Webster’s 2013 cap hit is now a more reasonable $6.845 million. If for whatever reason the Giants turn around and decide to release Webster, his release would result in a net cap savings of $4.25 million (the only portion of Webster’s contract that’s guaranteed to be on the cap is hit is his $2.595 million in bonuses). Webster didn’t have much negotiating room to do anything other than take this pay cut; he graded out 110th out of 113 qualifiers in ProFootballFocus’ 2012 cornerback rankings. Even with his reduction in salary, Webster still has the 5th highest cap hit on the Giants this year as of now. He would have had the 3rd-highest on the team, behind only Eli Manning and Chris Snee, had he not agreed to this reduction.”

According to a ProFootballTalk post last night, this wasn’t exactly the case with Webster’s deal. Per Mike Florio, Webster’s $7 million base salary and $250,000 workout bonus became a $1.25 million base salary, $2.5 million signing bonus, while the workout bonus remains the same. To help out with the cap this year, the Giants added a voidable season in 2014 to the contract, thus pushing $1.25 of that $2.5 million signing bonus to this voidable year due to the proration. Let’s take a look at what the Giants’ cap hit would look like in both 2013 and 2014 had the deal been as reported earlier, and as it’s being reported now:

Updated cap hits without voidable year:

2013: $6.845 million ($4 million base salary + $2.595 million prorated from various signing bonuses + $250,000 workout bonus)

2014: $0

Updated cap hits with voidable year:

2013: $5,345,000 ($1.25 million base salary +  $2.595 million prorated from various signing bonuses + $1.25 million prorated from new signing bonus + $250,000 workout bonus)

2014 (voidable year): $2,250,000 ($1 million base salary + $1.25 million prorated from new signing bonus)

As Jason wrote the other day here, voidable seasons are often extremely easy to achieve and are done simply to lower cap costs now, which also happens to increase dead money costs down the line. As a result of this restructure, the Giants now save $4.5 mill in cap space for 2013 (they would have saved $3 million in 2013 had the deal been as reported on Thursday). Instead, this voidable year in 2014 creates $1.25 million of dead money on the Giants salary cap in 2014. The 2014 figures would be a great contract for the Giants if, of course, the year wasn’t voidable and Webster was actually going to play for the team on a $2.250 million cap hit. Instead, dead money gets pushed forward a year on the Giants’ cap. As mentioned in Jason’s article I referenced above, adding voidable seasons to create a bit of extra space now while pushing dead money forward in the future just isn’t a sound practice, but Webster’s deal is far from the most egregious example of that.

@AndrewOTC

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The difference between the Giants’ dealings with Webster and Baas

If you’re someone who loves NFL cap stuff enough to be a frequent visitor of OverTheCap, you’ve probably already heard about the Giants’ transactions today with cornerback Corey Webster and center David Baas. Before these deals fade out of your memory I wanted to take some time to break down all the numbers involved with these moves, especially on Bass’ contract.

First, let’s take a look at Webster. 2013 will be the final season of a five-year extension he signed with the Giants in December 2008. His base salary was originally set at $7 million for this season while various other bonuses brought his cap hit to $9.845 million. All Webster agreed to do here was reduce his base salary to $4 million; there’s no real restructure, only a reduction in money for Webster. No additional cap hits come into play for the Giants and as a result, Webster’s 2013 cap hit is now a more reasonable $6.845 million. If for whatever reason the Giants turn around and decide to release Webster, his release would result in a net cap savings of $4.25 million (the only portion of Webster’s contract that’s guaranteed to be on the cap is hit is his $2.595 million in bonuses). Webster didn’t have much negotiating room to do anything other than take this pay cut; he graded out 110th out of 113 qualifiers in ProFootballFocus’ 2012 cornerback rankings. Even with his reduction in salary, Webster still has the 5th highest cap hit on the Giants this year as of now. He would have had the 3rd-highest on the team, behind only Eli Manning and Chris Snee, had he not agreed to this reduction.

As @Jason_OTC pointed out, Webster’s money for 2013 is similar to what Asante Samuel received in Atlanta last year on his new deal, and Nnamdi Asomugha is likely to see something similar regardless of whether he restructures or is released.

Now let’s see what happened with David Baas. Unlike Webster, Baas’ deal is truly a restructure. Actually, it’s the second time Baas has restructured his contract with the Giants, which always makes it more fun to try and break down. Baas signed a five-year deal with the Giants in July 2011. The contract contained an $8.5 million signing bonus, which for cap purposes accounts for $1.7 million per year in addition to Baas’ base salaries. After only one season, Baas agreed to restructure his contract by reducing his $3 million base salary to $900k. Don’t feel for Baas though, as that loss of $2.1 million wasn’t really a loss at all, it was simply converted into a new bonus to be prorated over the remaining four seasons on his contract. This restructure saved the Giants $1.325 million in cap space for 2012, but like any other restructure, added more money to to their cap in each of the remaining years on Baas’ deal. To be exact, this $2.1 million bonus gets prorated over the final four seasons of the deal, resulting in an extra $525k on the Giants cap in each of these years. In total, at this point the prorated bonuses on Baas’ deal totaled $2.225 million per year over the final 4 years, in addition to his base salaries and workout bonuses in each of those seasons.

Now fast forward from that point until today. Baas restructured his 2013 base salary from $4.25 million to $1.25 million, with that extra $3 million being converted into another bonus. With three years left on his contract, that $3 million gets prorated at $3 million per year until the contract’s expiration. This increases the prorated portions of Baas’ cap hits from $2.225 million last year to $3.225 million for each of the next three years. Including base salaries, Baas’ remaining cap hits on his contract now look like this:

2013: $4.725 million ($1.250 million base salary + $3.225 million prorated bonuses + $250k workout bonus)

2014: $8.225 million ($4.750 million base salary + $3.225 million prorated bonuses + $250k workout bonus)

2015: $8.475 million ($5 million base salary + $3.225 million prorated bonuses + $250k workout bonus)

The restructure doesn’t really have a major effect on Baas right now. Sure, that’s an extra $3 million that he sees up front, but since he is extremely likely to be on Giants’ roster for the duration of the season, he would have seen this money anyway as part of his base salary. Instead, he sees it a bigger lump sum while the Giants clear up some cap space for this year. However, with net cap savings in 2013 in 2014 that would result from Baas release after this year, he may not be so safe down the line.

This is yet again a good reminder that, despite restructuring a player’s contract to save money now, the bill for that saved money becomes due later. Every dollar a team pays a player has to be accounted for on the cap, and just because they can mess around with it to avoid paying today doesn’t mean they aren’t going to have to pay it at a later date. Keep that in mind with the large amount of restructures we’ve seen so far this offseason.

To take a look at the Giants salary cap situation, click here

@AndrewOTC. 

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