Giants restructure contracts of James Bradberry and Blake Martinez

Contract restructuring has become very important this offseason as teams work to get their salary cap under the new league base salary cap of $182.5 million. It involves some fancy accounting but essentially, a restructure generally converts a player’s current salary into a signing bonus. Then, that bonus can be spread out over multiple years for the cap hit.

This restructuring is something that teams like the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles (who are and were over the salary cap at the start of the offseason) have been doing a lot of in order to create more cap space.

The New York Giants have reportedly restructured the contracts of linebacker Blake Martinez and cornerback James Bradberry in order to create more cap space.

According to ESPN’s Field Yates, New York converted $8 million of Bradberry’s salary into a signing bonus, clearing $4 million in space. And they converted $7 million of Martinez’s salary, creating $3.5 million in space.

These moves will reduce Bradberry’s 2021 cap hit from $17.2 million to $13.2 million, and Martinez’s cap hit went from $10.225 million to $6.725 million.

Now, the Giants have $11.4 million in cap space.

The restructuring of Bradberry and Martinez’s contracts was likely done to help with the cap hit of newly-acquired cornerback Adoree’ Jackson, who signed a three-year, $39 million deal.