The New York Giants have already done quite a bit of shopping on the free agency and trade markets this offseason.
While they allowed Saquon Barkley to leave for the division rival Eagles and A'Shawn Robinson to head to the Panthers, The Giants signed a trio of interior offensive linemen (Jon Runyan Jr., Aaron Stinnie, and Austin Schlottmann), a tackle (Jermaine Eluemunor), a new running back (Devin Singletary), and a backup quarterback (Drew Lock), while also completing a trade for a star edge rusher (Brian Burns), on whom they then lavished a monster contract extension.
All of those moves left the Giants with precious little cap space by Thursday morning. According to Over the Cap, New York had the least salary-cap room in the league, sitting just $1.99 million below the line. That is, until the Giants restructured the contract of Pro Bowl defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.
According to ESPN, the Giants converted $10 million of Lawrence's $16 million base salary into a signing bonus, which created $7.5 million in additional cap room by spreading the cap hit over the final three years of his contract. Lawrence signed a four-year, $90 million deal extension with the Giants last offseason, and this restructure was essentially built into the deal.
This move should be enough to allow the Giants to sign their upcoming draft class, assuming they stay in their current draft slots, according to Spotrac's projected draft pool cap. New York is currently slated to make the No. 6 overall pick, but there have been rumors connecting the Giants to a possible trade up for one of the top quarterbacks in the class. The Giants may have to make more cap-clearing moves if they do something like that, but it would be a price well worth paying if they land their quarterback of the future.
