Giants find more room under cap

Think of the NFL salary cap as a big bill, and the Giants as your friend combing through the couch cushions for a little extra cash.

The Giants restructured the contracts Wednesday of punter Riley Dixon and tight end Kyle Rudolph to create an additional $350,000 in salary-cap flexibility, according to ESPN’s Field Yates. That makes seven different restructures totaling about $12.2 million in freed cap space since the end of training camp created by workarounds that are a short-term benefit but long-term detriment to a team’s finances.

Before the league year began in March, the Giants also reworked the contracts of cornerback James Bradberry and linebacker Blake Martinez for another $7.5 million in cap space. Bradberry has restructured his contract twice during the calendar year.

The Giants entered Wednesday with less than $500,000 in cap space, per NFL Players Association records. Vice president of football operations Kevin Abrams has long overseen the cap, but director of football operations Ed Triggs is responsible for the day-to-day management. All of it falls under the purview of general manager Dave Gettleman, who has abandoned his cap philosophy laid out in 2019 under win-now pressure.

“You have to take $20 million and put it to the side in a passbook savings account,” Gettleman said. “You want to be in a position to do extensions. If an attractive player is there, you want to have the cap space to make the decision instead of saying, ‘We can’t afford this guy.’ ”

The seven in-season contract redos allow the injury-plagued Giants to operate under the cap while paying the increased salaries for weekly players promoted from the practice squad and other fulfilled bonuses. A game-day call-up with two years or less of experience goes from making $9,200 per week on the practice squad to about $36,000 when on the active roster.