Should Giants Restructure LT Andrew Thomas's Contract Before 2024 Season?

That's what one analyst believes. Here's why we disagree.

Jan 21, 2023; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants offensive tackle Andrew Thomas (78) against Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Josh Sweat (94) during an NFC divisional round game at Lincoln Financial Field. / Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

The NFL salary cap has long kept many general managers up at night wondering how to balance the books while still being able to afford talent. 

One way they do that is to “create new money” to spend by restructuring those bloated contracts already on the books. To do this, the team usually converts a player’s base salary for the current league year into a signing bonus, which gets prorated over the remaining contract's life (up to five years).

The problem with this approach is that it pushes more money into the back end of the contract, where if the team ultimately wants to cut the player, the dead money racks up. 

With the annual salary cap rising each year, it’s not that big of a deal. However, the idea is for a team to minimize the amount of dead money it carries every year that could otherwise be used on player acquisitions or extensions for core young talent already on the roster. 

This brings us to a suggestion by Bleacher Report’s Alex Ballentine that the Giants consider restructuring left tackle Andrew Thomas's contract before the season. 

Notes Ballentine, “The Giants don't have a lot of foundational players to feel good about. Thus, they don't have a lot of players they should feel comfortable restructuring. Andrew Thomas is one of the exceptions.

“Thomas signed a five-year, $117.5 million contract that should age well as the tackle market develops with the rising salary cap. The pact is straightforward, with Thomas under contract through the 2029 season and never carrying a cap charge of more than $22.9 million.

“While it would be nice to keep things that way, there's room for expanded hits down the line, especially if the salary cap continues to rise every year. … 

"They might need to swing a trade or add a free agent at some point this season, and they are 22nd in cap space right now. Restructuring Thomas is an easy sell to ownership that would create extra cap space to get aggressive and maybe exceed expectations.” 

What isn’t being considered in B/R’s argument is that the Giants just gained over $11 million in cap space with Darren Waller’s retirement. That $11 million should be enough for the Giants to get through the summer and part of, if not all, the upcoming season, assuming they don’t get hit by a rash of injuries.

Right now, there are no free agents out there for whom teams are banging down the door to sign and who would warrant the type of contract that would warrant big money. The Giants also don't have any major pending extensions on the horizon where they would need more space. So why rush to do a restructure right now?

That said, in time, Thomas’s contract will eventually be restructured. The offensive lineman signed a five-year, $117.5 million contract extension with the Giants on July 26, 2023, which put him under contract through the 2029 season.

When Thomas signed that deal, his signing bonus ($15 million) kicked in at a prorated rate of $3 million per season. Because signing bonuses can only be prorated for five years, Thomas’s current structure has zero prorated money against the books in 2028 and 2029. 

This means that if the Giants were to restructure his deal before the 2024 season, that would add to the $3 million prorated signing bonus (the new money he received as part of the extension) from 2024-2028.

Again, that’s not a big deal, but what is a big deal is that any restructuring done in 2024 would have to equal the guaranteed money owed to Thomas in 2024, which is $19.175 million. 

Theoretically, converting part of his base salary to a signing bonus would take care of this, but from a cap perspective, since Thomas already has a roster bonus of $5 million) and a $1 million play-time bonus), it makes better financial sense to wait until 2025 to do a restructuring, if possible.

Restructures will eventually come–they always do–but  Schoen, who has said in the past that he prefers not to have to restructure deals if possible, probably won’t prioritize creating additional cap space until he needs it.

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