It took a couple of years for Dalvin Tomlinson to become the player the Giants had hoped he’d be, but when he finally did he became invaluable.
He proved to be an excellent and durable player and developed into a team leader. He became the kind of home-grown players teams usually reward for their efforts, the kind of player the Giants should love to keep.
And they would love to keep him, according to a team source.
It’s just not clear if they can.
“Teams can generally do anything they want with the salary cap if they really want a player,” said one NFL agent. “But there are limits. And unless he’s willing to give them a big hometown discount, I don’t see how they can afford what he’s going to demand.”
That’s the Giants’ problem with the 27-year-old Tomlinson. The NFL sees all the good things about him that they’ve seen the last few years. He’s a terrific run-stuffer, a sneaky-good pass rusher (seven sacks in the last two seasons) and a durable, reliable athlete who has started all 64 games of his four-year career. He’s a leader who was named a team captain. He’s a good guy who was the Giants’ nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award.
It’s hard to say what that is all worth in a market that could be depressed by a $182.5 million salary cap that shrunk for only the second time in history. Some agents and executives have pegged Tomlinson’s value around $14 million per year on a multi-year contract. Others believe he might be in the $10-11 million per year range as a second-tier guy after most of the big money is gone. And some believe that he might be better off taking a one-year deal worth about that, knowing he could be in line for a huge pay day as a free agent when the cap goes back up next year.
The low end of the guesses could be feasible for the Giants. The high end, though, might be a bit out of their price range. After making several cuts and using the $19.3 million franchise tag on Leonard Williams, the Giants are currently only about $3 million under the cap. They would have to clear a lot more room to squeeze in Tomlinson and leave them enough to sign their draft class and maybe a free agent or two, too.
Some NFL sources who have spoken to the Giants believe they will try, though they all seemed skeptical that they will succeed. It will take some difficult and possibly painful salary cap maneuvers for them to make a realistic effort at all:
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They’d almost have to sign Williams to a long-term contract extension because his $19.3 million cap hit is untenable if they want Tomlinson, too. Williams is likely to get at least $20 million per year with probably $60 million guaranteed. But just as an example, the five-year, $105 million deal signed by the Cowboys’ DeMarcus Lawrence in 2019 had only an $11 million cap hit in the first year before jumping to the $25-29 million range after that. A similar deal will Williams could clear $8 million more for the Giants to spend.
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They would have to cut tackle Nate Solder or get him to agree to a massive pay cut. A “restructure” doesn’t do it, because it probably only clears about $4 million at most. But he’s due $10 million in salary and bonuses for 2021. They could cut that to $2 million and give him some incentives where he might be able to make back some of what he lost. That saves $8 million, or they could just cut him and declare him a “post-June 1 cut,” which clears $10 million off the books.
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They could restructure the deals of James Bradberry (who is due $13.9 million in salary this year), Blake Martinez ($8.125 million), or Sterling Shepard ($6.975 million). That’s not something the Giants want to do, though, since restructuring all three of them would maybe clear about $10 million while pushing that cap hit into future years – mostly 2022.
Signing Williams and cutting Solder (or significantly cutting his pay) would probably bring the Giants to around $20 million under the cap. They could theoretically bring back Tomlinson if his price is reasonable, and still have a little bit left to spare for free agency and the draft.
But it would still be tight and might require more cuts. There seems to be no doubt the Giants would like to bring Tomlinson back if they can. It’s just unclear how far they’re willing to go to get it done.