The mail’s here
John Kozel asks: I am curious what happens to the dollars that are “dead money” on the salary cap. I assume that portion of the cap is not available to pay a player so it takes potential earnings out of the pot of cash. If so, why isn’t the NFLPA up in arms that bad team management takes money off the table?
Hoping you can tell me what I’m missing? Thanks.
Ed says: John, if I am reading your question correctly you are concerned that “dead money” is money that is never spent by a team, thus never being transferred to players.
That is not how it works. Money is considered “dead” and not spendable in the current year because it has already been spent.
Dead money is usually signing bonus money that is split across the life of a contract for salary cap purposes. For example, if a player signed a four-year, $50 million deal with $20 million guaranteed as a signing bonus, he gets that $20 million as soon as he puts his name on the contract. That $20 million, though, does not all go into Year 1 of his contract for accounting/salary cap purposes. It is split $5 million in each of the four years of his deal. So, if a team cuts a player after two years, there would be $10 million in “dead money” that still has to be accounted for. That is because it has already been spent, and can’t be spent twice.
Gemany Feng asks: Can Drew Lock be a long-term answer? When he played last year, he looked good and poised. Lock is never mentioned in the Giants’ plans.
Ed says: Gemany, anything is possible. Lock as a long-term answer, though, is unlikely. He wasn’t the long-term answer with the Denver Broncos. He couldn’t win the starting job with the Seattle Seahawks.
He has a one-year contract. The Giants are looking at Lock as a bridge or placeholder if Daniel Jones isn’t ready to play, gets injured again, or the Giants decide to bench Jones late in the year to avoid the injury guarantee in his contract kicking in.
Lock has had his opportunities and hasn’t seized them. The Giants are more likely if they want to move on from Jones to try to draft and develop their own quarterback. That’s the approach that makes sense financially, and it really is how the league works.
Two questions about interception stats:
Walker Joyce asks: I have a rule I’d like to change … or propose.
Along with the salary cap and “deferring” the opening kick, another long-term pet peeve has been an interception triggered by a tipped ball. Those are almost entirely the fault of the clumsy receiver, so why should the QB be charged with an interception? That unfairly effects his rating, and perhaps later on his compensation.
Why not just have a new category called Tips? It could be a neutral stat, or charged to the player that caused it.
We distinguish sacks and pressures from tackling, so why not some grace for the passer?
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Allen Blank asks: There are stats that show sacks allowed by the Oline versus sacks caused by QB play. Are there and shouldn’t there be interception stats separating those by poor QB throws versus those caused by the intended receiver? When a pass perfectly thrown is bobbled or just not caught and ends up in the hands of the defense seems to me should not be held against DJ or any QB.
Ed says: Allen, I agree that there are interceptions caused by a bad throw or decision by a quarterback, and interceptions that can be caused by a wide receiver mistake, something fluky, a tipped ball or simply a great defensive play. To an extent, all of that is subjective. I think the same can be said of sacks a quarterback is responsible for vs. sacks the blocking is responsible for.
I don’t know that beyond the ‘total’ you can ever get those numbers 100% right.
The flip side is there are balls that should be intercepted but are dropped by defenders or tipped away by receivers. So, it works both ways
I think that the best stat I know of that provides at least some context is the ‘turnover worthy plays’ stat provided by Pro Football Focus. You can also go to Pro Football Reference and look for a receiver’s advanced statistics. Guys who get a high number of passes thrown their way and have low passer ratings when targeted are generally not reliable receivers.
If anyone knows of better stats for charting interceptions or turnover worthy plays, please share.
Vincent Moody asks: Hi, there was recently a few headlines about Belichick having interest in coaching the Giants. I think it would be a terrible idea. Can you reassure me this would never happen and Mara’s connection with Belichick wouldn’t blind him to the fact that an old coach who would want control over the whole organization and hasn’t had any recent success, especially with developing quarterbacks since Brady would set the Giants way back?
Ed says: Vincent, I can’t reassure you on this one. I am not inside John Mara’s head and I don’t know how he feels about Bill Belichick these days. I, too, think Belichick replacing Brian Daboll would be a bad idea.
That would mean putting Belichick in charge of everything and likely sweeping out Joe Schoen as GM. Revamping the front office — again. I can’t imagine Belichick wanting to coach for more than two or three more years, and I just don’t see the Giants as a place where he can win big in that short window.
Count me as one who does not want to see Belichick running the Giants.
The Flying Hellfish asks: Quick one for you: Up until maybe last week, it seems set in stone that Minnesota was trading up for a QB and very recently, folks seem to have pivoted hard away from that, but I haven’t really heard why. I haven’t heard about a leak, or some ‘inside source’ or anything, but with the recent talk of the Giants possibly (likely?) trying to trade up for a QB, no one seems to even be mentioning Minnesota.
Did I miss something?
Ed says: Flying, I’m not sure what you have been reading but a lot of analysts are still talking about the Minnesota Vikings potentially moving up past the Giants for a quarterback.
I think that what some have begun to question is whether a team like the Arizona Cardinals, with the No. 4 overall pick and a need for a game-breaking wide receiver, would trade all the way down to No. 11 (the Vikings have picks 11 and 23), which would take them out of the running for Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze.
The possibility Minnesota will try to move up for a quarterback remains very real.
Jim McKnight asks: Would you rather go into the 2024 season with the current safeties on the roster or the current cornerbacks on the roster?
A lot of people are talking about safety and corner as positions of need going in to the draft. I think Dane Belton could start in place of Xavier McKinney and Nick McCloud could start at CB2. Would I like to upgrade the positions, sure! But I don’t think we need to shop hungry going in to the draft for either position. If you had to assume some risk at one of those spots where would you do it?
Ed says: Jim, given that choice in a vacuum I would take the safeties.
I would be curious to see if Dane Belton, who has had some pretty good on-ball production in his first two NFL seasons, could handle a full-time role. Jalen Mills is a veteran who has started a lot of games, has played a decent amount of safety the past few years and could give the Giants some coverage there.
At cornerback, the Giants have Nick McCloud and Tre Hawkins III who “could” be the starters opposite Tae Banks. Given the importance of cornerback, and the fact that I think you can never have enough good ones, I would prefer to see the Giants address cornerback before safety if the grades they have on available players are equal.
Matt Falconer asks: What are the possible reasons for Darren Waller taking so long to decide on playing this season?
Is he looking for a buyout, or perhaps has an injury that may get an insurance claim?
Seems like there is a back story we are not hearing.
Ed says: Matt, I don’t think there is any hidden back story or conspiracy theory. Waller is simply trying to decide if he wants to commit the time and effort it takes to be a pro football player.
To me, I think the fact that he hasn’t made a decision yet is the answer. He has a lot of other interests in his life, and I don’t think he desperately needs football.
As for the contract, there is no buyout or anything like that. If he retires, the Giants are on the hook for $7.376 million in dead money charges. That is signing bonus money already paid to Waller but not yet accounted for in the salary cap.
The Giants might be able to process that as a post-June 1 cut/transaction to split the cap hit over two seasons. They would still be responsible for that signing bonus money, though.
Carl Pellegrino asks: The Eagles extended DeVonta Smith this week. In addition to having already signed Saquon Barkley, they also have AJ Brown, Jalen Hurts, both offensive tackle (Jordan Mailata and Lane Johnson), and at least one of their offensive guards on high end second contracts – which is at least 7 of the 11 offensive starters? The Giants didn’t want to pay a premium price for a RB. Okay, fine. It didn’t fit. But how can Eagles pay all those players at the same time? The obvious answer is they’ve pushed a lot of cap space into future years. But does this not mean that they are approaching future cap hell in a win-now effort that will blow up on them in a couple years? Do you think that is part of Schoen’s plan to close the large gap between them and us?
Ed says: Carl, Eagles’ GM Howie Roseman uses ‘void years’ to push money well into the future, quite possibly when players who have those void years and will count on the cap are no longer playing for the Eagles. It is definitely a ‘win-now’ calculation aimed toward keeping as much of a talented roster together as long as he can. It is also a long-term calculation that because the cap keeps going up astronomically it might not hurt that much when the bill does come due.
For what it’s worth, Over The Cap has Philadelphia projected to be among the bottom four teams in the league in cap space from 2025-2027. That is, obviously a long-term projection that should be taken with a grain of salt. It is, though, worth noting.
As for the Giants, I don’t think Schoen’s cap management is necessarily slanted toward closing the gap with the Eagles. I think it is simply a recognition that they are building and not in the same place competitively as the Eagles are.
Dave Levitt asks: How do teams assign a value for future draft picks in propose draft trades? Do teams make assumptions how the team offering a draft pick will finish in the current season? For example, if they think the team will finish with the 10th worst record, they will assign them with the 10th pick in a draft value chart. Or do they just group teams into buckets such as low, middle, and high where a mid-team would have a 16th pick?
I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Giants might maneuver around the draft this year and my preference for the price of a trade up would be to include a 2025 draft pick instead of a 2024 draft pick as the Giants have many holes to fill. I can’t see the Giants exiting this draft with only four or five selections. What would be your preference?
Ed says: Dave, the trade charts always discount picks in future years. This one, for example, discounts such picks 55%. I am not sure what the standard is, but I would think teams generally have some type of discount. After all, a general manager trading for future assets might not be the general manager who gets to select those future assets.
To my knowledge, teams would generally put those in “buckets.” They have a pretty good idea of which teams might be drafting in the top, middle, or bottom of the draft.
As for your thinking about giving up future assets, you can’t expect a team to move down without giving them something in the current draft. The Giants have pick No. 47 in Round 2. Let’s say they would like to have pick No. 35, which belongs to the Arizona Cardinals. The Giants can’t expect the Cardinals to give up that pick for only something in 2025. They would have to give up 47 and something else like a mid-round pick in 2025.
Mendy asks: Hypothetical – let’s say a team has the #6 draft pick and the team with the #8 pick wants to trade up. Can the team with the #6 pick ask who the other team will pick? Can the team with the #6 pick say we will make the trade as long as you don’t pick player X?
Has this happened before?
Ed says: Mendy, there has to be some communication about what the “move up” team is intending. The “move down” team is not going to make a trade with a team that is coming up to get the player it wants. There may not be an exchange of names in terms of exactly what player, but there needs to be some information given.
“You’ve got to have a lot of trust when you’re there, when you do have conversations with people behind you looking to come up,” Giants’ GM Joe Schoen said on Thursday.
In other words, GMs have to trust each other that if you trade down a spot or two as you suggest you aren’t getting screwed out of the player you want. You also have to trust that anything you share with that rival GM stays in-house and isn’t shared with other teams.
If I remember correctly, when Schoen swapped spots with the Jacksonville Jaguars last year to get Tae Banks, the Jaguars wanted to know whether Schoen was interested in drafting offense or defense.
Here is a bit about Schoen’s process in laying the groundwork for trades, from his Thursday press conference:
“What I do personally is Monday, Tuesday, depending what I’m thinking about doing or what I’m interested in doing, I’ll call the general managers, call each team, and check in. What are you looking to do? Are you looking to move up? I may be willing to go back. I may be looking to go up, depending on who it is. You have those exploratory conversations if they’d be open to it. It’s, okay, circle back or text me the pick before you’re on the clock or if we want to come up.
“You’ll gather the information. Most of the stuff I gather, it’s word of mouth with the actual general managers, if they would be interested in it. Trent Baalke last year, we had that conversation during the day depending how the board falls. Again, we were a little bit worried about some teams maybe coming up behind us to take Tae (Banks). We also had contingency plans with some teams to move back at that point too.
“A lot of those conversations were had the day of the draft that morning leading up to it. So you knew what the teams around you were doing and looking to do. So that’s typically where I get most of that.”
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