How the New York Giants Have Masterfully Handled the Finances in 2026 Free Agency

There have been no “splash signings” by the New York Giants among their blend of 25 free agents signed since the start of free agency (including their own players), certainly not in like the Las Vegas Raiders, who signed center Tyler Linderbaum to a three year contract worth $81 million ($27 million APY) or the Kansas City Chiefs, who landed Super Bowl LX MVP running back Kenneth Walker III on a three-year, $43.05 million contract ($14.35 million APY).

What there has been is a flurry of fiscally smart investments, which have set the Giants, who at the start of the 2026 free-agency sweeps had roughly $4.2 million in effective cap space (30th in the league).

It began with the Giants exercising restraint by not engaging in bidding wars for players such as receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, whom they reportedly capped at around $14 million APY (he got $17.5 million APY from the Tennessee Titans), and cornerback Cor’Dale Flott, a good CB2 who received $15 million APY from the Titans.

For perspective, the two biggest contracts handed out by the Giants in free agency averaged $13.333 million APY (tight end Isaiah Likely) and $12 million APY (linebacker Tremaine Edmunds), both players who are expected to have large roles on offense and defense, respectively, this season.

So how did the Giants manage to find the money to get these deals and others done despite having once been near the bottom of the league in cap space?

The Path to the Pot of Gold

Obviously, the first step toward finding the money to bring in all the free agents the Giants did was to trim the fat. As was expected, the Giants did so by cutting Bobby Okereke ($9 million savings) and offensive lineman James Hudson III ($5.3 million savings).

They got running back Devin Singletary to agree to a pay cut, and they restructured Brian Burns’s contract to free up about $15 million in space.

New York Giants running back Devin Singletary agreed to take a pay cut to stay with the team. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

There is more fat trimming to be done–it’s believed that kicker Graham Gano will be dropped from the roster just as soon as he can pass a physical. And the team can find even more money by extending defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence’s contract for another couple of years (Lawrence has no more guaranteed money left in his current deal) and by also restructuring left tackle Andrew Thomas’s deal.

Trading outside linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux is another way to gain a nice chunk of cap space–roughly $14.75 million. But such a deal will obviously need to yield worthy value on the return for it to be executed–and that is, of course, head coach John Harbaugh no longer wants Thibodeaux on the roster.

The Key Strategy

For the past several years, the Giants have not fully taken advantage of all the available mechanisms to optimize salary cap space while also fulfilling their needs for quality players.

Methods such as voidable years, which allow a signing bonus to be spread over a maximum of 5 years, were seldom used, particularly with longer contracts (5 years or more), where they can be particularly useful.

The Philadelphia Eagles have been widely known for deploying this mechanism with their longer contracts.

Free Agency Spending 2026

1. TEN $316M
2. LV $293M
3. IND $255M
4. WAS $253M
5. CAR $197M
...
30. DET $50M
31. PHI $43M
32. MIN $42M

Data: OTC (03/24/2026) pic.twitter.com/ZXnODDrbHX
— SFdata9ers🏈📊 (@sfdata9ers) March 24, 2026

While it’s a useful mechanism for a team that aspires to be in the Super Bowl annually, if it’s done too frequently and without the desired results of a championship, it will eventually catch up with the team in terms of dead money.

Option bonuses, another vehicle typically used for longer contracts, in which picking up the option reduces the player’s cap hit for that season, is another vehicle the team has seldom used.

Recently, new salary cap strategist Dawn Aponte has incorporated a key tool: using the “Not Likely to Be Earned” (NLTBE) category of incentives. These incentives push bonus money earned to the next year’s cap, where the rising cap figure often absorbs the expense.

To qualify for an NLTBE bonus, a baseline must be established among eligible stats or conditions (such as playing time) for the player to reach that he didn’t reach the year prior.

For example, tight end Isaiah Likely played 57% of the snaps for the Baltimore Ravens in 2025. Thus, as part of one of his incentives, he can earn an additional $150,000 after the season if he plays in 60% of the Giants’ 2026 snaps and the team qualifies for the playoffs, the latter being something the Ravens did not do last year.

The bonus, if reached, then hits the Giants’ 2027 cap because there is no way to assume that, as is the case of a “Likely to Be Earned” (LTBE) incentive (a performance incentive based on a player achieving a statistic in the previous season in which they are expected to reach again) that the player will reach that incentive.

Here is the beauty of the Giants’ use of NLTBE incentives: None of those reported NLTBE’s appear to exceed more than 1% of the Giants’ estimated 2027 salary cap for any given player (our estimate, based on the reported NLTBE incentives included in the contracts, is that the Giants have allocated approximately 2.4% of their 2027 estimated cap figure, or approximately $7.848 million.

(That $7.848 million should be more than enough to either sign another key free agent or, at the very least, address several veteran salary benefits.)

Unlike voidable years, where, regardless of what stats a player achieves, if his five-year deal is voided after three years, the remaining prorated signing bonus accelerates into the following year’s cap after the contract voids. If an NLTBE incentive isn’t reached by the player, it doesn’t hit the following year’s cap.

What this also does is help keep projected dead money at a minimum, thereby increasing the available financial resources for the following year.

A Brighter Financial Future

We generally don’t recommend getting too excited about available cap space beyond the current year, only because that space that as of the composing of this article ($64.673 million for 2027, which is way down from the $100+ million the Giants initially had before 2026 free-agency began) is going to drop as more players are signed/re-signed during the course of the upcoming season.

General Manager Joe Schoen and new Giants head coach John Harbaugh. | Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

But what we can get excited about is that the Giants finally have someone handling their salary cap who understands all the little nuances to stretch the annual funds while still accomplishing what the coaching staff feels it needs to avoid being hamstrung in the talent department and to be competitive at the highest possible level.

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