Giants Face Huge Eli Cap Hit

I’ll get to the Eagles cap situation later this week, but first a look at their NFC East rivals. First the Giants and their Eli Manning dilemma with a huge 2008 salary cap number looming.

 

Eli Manning's contract had “two voidable years (2008 and 2009) and a buy-back provision. As a league source tells us, and as Mark Maske of the Washington Post reported at the time, the Giants exercised the buy-back in March 2007.

So, as a result of the buy-back and other tweaks to the rookie deal, the Giants currently are on the hook for $8.45 million in 2008 base salary and $8.5 million in 2009 base salary. Manning's cap number for 2008, we're told, is a whopping $11.4 million. (The cap number would be higher, but there was a "Deion Sanders rule" issue that required the team to take a $700,000 charge earlier in the deal.)

We're also told that Manning's bonus proration will count $3.6 million against the cap in 2008 and $3.6 million against the cap in 2009. Thus, if the Giants were to cut him or trade him before June 1 of 2008, they would carry $7.2 million in dead money in 2008, but save $8.45 million in cash and reduce his cap number by $4 million. A cut or a trade after June 1 (or a pre-June 1 cut that is designated under the CBA as a post-June 1 transaction), would save $8.45 million in cash and $7.6 million in cap space in 2008, but would cost $3.6 million against the cap in 2009.

Bottom line? Even though the Giants have already made the decision to buy back the next two years of the deal, they still face a tough question come 2008: Is Eli worth a cap number of $11.2 million and $8.45 million in salary for one year of football?,” reports Pro Football Talk.