Giants cornerback Josh Jackson has agreed to revise the final year of his rookie contract (Twitter link via Field Yates of ESPN.com). Now, he’ll earn a base salary of $920K, down from his previously scheduled $1.33M. 
The Giants were nearing the cap limit, so Jackson’s revamped pact will give them some much needed breathing room. It’s also possible that Jackson would have been released if he didn’t agree to the new terms.
Jackson, 25, was widely projected to be a mid-to-late first rounder in 2018. Instead, the Big Ten defensive back of the year slipped to the middle of the second round, where the Packers pounced on him at No. 45. He’s yet to break out as a pro, however. The Packers shipped him to the Giants in mid-August, taking on cornerback Isaac Yiadom instead.
Jackson started in more than half of his games as a rookie, but he was first-string for only five contests between 2019 and 2020. Now, in his walk year, he’ll fight for time behind starters James Bradberry and Adoree Jackson.
For all of those who complain when players hold out for more money and say ‘they signed a contract and should play it out’ or ‘if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t have signed’, here’s the other side of the coin.
The Giants needed to find a few bucks for salary cap-related reasons, so they come to a marginal player and force him to take a $400,000 (30%-ish) paycut. If the Giants didn’t like his salary and contract, they shouldn’t have acquired him, right?
None of his money was guaranteed which means he agreed to get zero if cut by the giants. Every player knows what zero guarenteed money
Knows what zero guaranteed money means
Players that are not stars have zero choice but to accept non-guaranteed contracts. And who fights tooth and nail for non-guaranteed contracts? Owners, not players.
NFL contracts mean nothing and it’s because of the owners, not the players.
So the Giants need $$$ for salary cap reasons. They go to a player and say we’d like
To keep you but you need to take a pay cut. If not we will release you and you may get that on the market and we will find a similar player for our budget. You tell us.
Player recognizes he will still get more with pay cut then he will on market. And so player and team are happy. But rct knows the business of football better than everyone else
As a football fan for years I still don’t get the whole salary cap. The Giants have a cap hit of around $190 million. Which over the cap says they are about $6 million over the cap. However, another team has a cap hit of over $210 million and has about $1 million UNDER the cap? (These figures included dead money and injured reserve players).
I thought it was a hard cap?
Can anyone explain?
Teams are able to roll over salary. Say if you don’t spend $10mil, that will roll over to the next season. You are also only able to roll that money over for one season. So if you finish the following season with $15mil in room, you are only able to roll over $5mil