New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen has gone to great lengths this offseason to get his arms around the impossible task of straightening out the team’s dire salary cap situation.
As great as job as Schoen has done, the Giants still have a long way to go if they plan on fitting all nine of their 2022 NFL draft picks on the roster this year.
Following the restructure of Adoree’ Jackson’s contract, the Giants are now just over $6.34 million in available salary cap space.
The Giants have $6,340,274 in salary cap space after the Adoree' Jackson restructure, per NFLPA records.
The Jets have $17,650,453 remaining.
The Jets will need about $13.1M of that for their draft class. The Giants will need $12.5M for their class (per OverTheCap).
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RVacchianoSNY) April 6, 2022
The Giants are still holding out hope that they can trade running back Saquon Barkley and/or cornerback James Bradberry to give them some much-needed cap relief.
That may not happen by the draft. Teams will likely roll the dice at the draft table to see what they can at those positions before turning back to the marketplace for answers. As of right now, both players are too expensive for teams to trade capital for, so the Giants are going to have either get creative or make some tough choices.
With Barkley, the Giants are locked into his $7.2 million salary unless they can trade him. They will realize no cap relief by cutting him.
Bradberry’s $21.86 million cap hit is killing the Giants but there’s little they can do other than hope for a trade or cut him outright. Cutting Bradberry will release $12-$13 million and go a long way in solving their financial issues.
