Darius Slayton Takes Significant Pay Cut to Remain with Giants

New York Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton was once touted as the team's biggest draft steal in recent years following a breakout rookie performance in which he recorded a team-leading eight touchdowns in 2019.

But a combination of injuries, inconsistencies in the coaching/scheme, and other factors ultimately took a toll on Slayton, who, despite seeing a significant number of pass targets that warranted performance escalators to kick in, just never yielded the production he enjoyed as a rookie.

So with the Giants currently under a significant salary cap crunch, Slayton, the talk of trade rumors all off-season, agreed to a steep pay cut to help the team. Instead of making $2.54 million, the base salary adjusted to factor in all the escalators, he will earn a league minimum of $965,000 and will get a chance to earn back some of what was cut via play-time incentives.

Slayton was excused from Tuesday's practice by the coaches, the likely reason presumably the matter of his contract. With that resolved, the 25-year-old has a good chance of earning back some of what he gave up, given the health history of the Giants receivers--Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney, and Sterling Shepard--in front of him on the depth chart.

The Slayton pay cut, as first reported by Newsday, will save the Giants about $1.6 million against the cap and comes a day after the team restructured defensive lineman Leonard Williams' contract.

According to Over the Cap, the Giants have $5,146,341 in cap space, which does not yet reflect the Slayton pay cut. If the Giants can somehow ward off the injury bug from wrecking the team, the estimated $6.7 million in cap space should be enough to get them through the season.

If the injury bug bites them again, the Giants could be in a precarious situation. The team seems intent on avoiding touching receiver Kenny Golladay's contract, which following the Williams restructure, is now the Giants' highest cap hit ($21.5 million) on the 2022 league year's books, at all costs.

They can't yet touch the left tackle Andrew Thomas's contract, nor can they touch Saquon Barkley's contract. The only other option would be to extend quarterback Daniel Jones, who is in the final year of his rookie deal and who counts for nearly $4 million on the cap if Jones shows consistent improvement and erases any doubts regarding his suitability as a franchise quarterback.

Regardless, the Giants are unlikely to do anything with him until after the season.

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