Dan Graziano, senior NFL national reporter 9y

Giants' spending lags on defensive side

Our latest ESPN salary cap estimates (through Thursday afternoon) show the New York Giants with $25,328,930 in projected cap space. That assumes a salary cap of $143 million, which is the NFLPA's official projection and probably a bit lower than what the cap ultimately will be. We'll have final cap numbers within the next week.

The way we figured the Giants' cap space was as follows:

  • Project a salary cap of $143 million.

  • Add the $151,000 in cap room the Giants are allowed to carry forward from last year (the second-lowest such figure in the league).

  • Subtract the current top 51 scheduled salaries on the roster for 2015, which amounts to $111,012,877.

  • Subtract the total "dead money" owed for the contracts of guys like David Baas, Mathias Kiwanuka, David Wilson, etc. That comes to $6,809,193.

That gets us to a projection of $25,328,930 in cap room, which is the 15th-highest total in the league.

How should the Giants spend this? Well, the short answer is on defense.

Of that $111,012,877 in top-51 salaries, $63,662,978 is committed to offensive players. That's 57.3 percent of their current projected cap spend. Another 5.6 percent ($6.21 million) is scheduled for special teamers, which means only 37.1 percent of the Giants' money right now for 2015 is scheduled to be spent on their defense.

That's not the kind of balance you're looking for in roster-building, and you can expect the Giants to work to even it out this offseason. Now, it'll even out a fair bit once they sign or (more likely) franchise defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul. But even if Pierre-Paul gets a $15 million franchise tag, the defense would still lag behind the offense by almost $8 million in salary commitments.

Where do the Giants spend less than other teams? Well, we have that, too:

  • Defensive end? Yes, but not for long. As of now, the Giants have less money committed to the defensive end position ($4,330,688) than any other team in the league. But if they franchise Pierre-Paul for $15 million, they'd jump to No. 8 in the league at that position. So that's not really where they're lagging.

  • Defensive tackle? Yes. They have only $5,078,392 committed right now at defensive tackle, which is the 19th-most in the league and well below the league average of $8,200,344. Of the 13 teams behind them, only seven run 4-3 defenses (and therefore start two defensive tackles) as the Giants do. Now, they're getting great production there from a very young and very cheap ($1.099 million cap number) Johnathan Hankins. And they just cut Cullen Jenkins' cap number down to a little more than $2 million. But there is room to add to the defensive tackle rotation if they want to do it. If they can't bring back Mike Patterson, they could go out and sign someone more expensive there. (Though, no, probably not as expensive as Ndamukong Suh.)

  • Linebacker? About average. They have $13,392,806 committed at linebacker, which is a little bit below the league average of $15,188,549. That counts a huge $6.692 million cap number for Jon Beason, which is likely to be adjusted significantly, and a $3.4 million number for Jameel McClain. The Giants don't like to spend on linebacker, so I'd expect this to be a place where they cut, rather than add, salary.

  • Safety? Very much so. The Giants have only $1,190,193 committed right now at safety, where Cooper Taylor and Nat Berhe are the only players currently under contract for 2015. Only Indianapolis and Washington have less money committed at safety. The Giants clearly have room to spend here and probably will.

  • Cornerback? Heck, no. Only four teams -- the Patriots, Cowboys, Cardinals and Dolphins -- have more 2015 cap money committed to cornerbacks than the Giants' $18.678 million. The league average cap spend on cornerbacks right now for 2015 is $12,533,115. The Giants have made this position a priority with Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Prince Amukamara as $7 million-or-so-per-year starters, and you shouldn't be surprised to see them spend on this position again, whether it's by bringing back guys like Walter Thurmond and Zack Bowman or finding strong replacements for them on the market. The Giants believe this is position is one that is worthy of their major resources.

So what do we take from this? The Giants need to beef up at safety and on the defensive line. Even if they re-sign Pierre-Paul or franchise him, there's room in their budget for another pass-rusher to replace the faded and just-released Kiwanuka. Even if they want to give Berhe or Taylor a starting safety spot, they can play at the top of the market for their other starting safety.

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