The New York Giants will have quite a bit of salary cap to play with this offseason, but that may not preclude general manager Joe Schoen from cutting some existing salaries from his roster.
The Giants will have anywhere between $50 and $60 million in available cap space this offseason but Schoen will continue to tune up his roster and trim the fat from it where he sees necessary.
One candidate for a cut, whether it be a restructure or complete cut, is inside linebacker Bobby Okereke.
Over The Cap has created a metric that identifies players who have a negative or low “valuation above median starter” and Okereke is the only Giant on the list, although he is not in the negative.
The metric is based on injury and games missed, quality of roster depth at the player’s position, and others. Okereke has a “contract fate” of 56.3 percent, which barely qualifies him for this list, which lists all NFL players over 50 percent.
Although the Giants aren’t likely to part ways with the 28-year-old Okereke, they can if they choose to as they have an out this spring in the four-year, $40 million free agent deal he signed in 2023.
Okereke played in 12 games this season before going down with a back injury that landed him on injured reserve (IR). He played every snap in 2023 and hadn’t missed a game since 2020 when he was with the Indianapolis Colts.
The defensive captain recorded 93 tackles (47 solo, six for a loss), three forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, three passes defensed, two QB hits, and 2.0 sacks.
The Giants can save approximately $4 million in cap space by cutting Okereke and have sufficient depth with Micah McFadden and Darius Muasau, who are both still on their rookie deals.
