Why it’ll be tough for the Giants or anyone to sign Dansby
The uncertainty of the future salary cap means that even if we have an uncapped year, a signing now will impact future capped years:
Can’t a team just front-load a contract to take advantage of the uncapped year?
No, this would be difficult to do. That is because, according to the CBA, any salary decrease of greater than 50% from one year to the next becomes signing bonus and thus is spread out over the life of the deal. For example, if the Patriots signed Vince Wilfork to a deal with a $20M salary in 2010 (uncapped) and a $4M salary in 2011 (capped), then that is a decrease of more than 50% ($10M), that $16M difference would become signing bonus and pro-rated over the life of the deal; if it was a four-year deal, then it would count as $4M/year, so the 2010 cap charge would reduce to $8M ($20M – $16M + $4M), and the 2011-2013 charges would increase by $4M.
And here is the link:
http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/10/313167-uncapped-year-faq.html
So the Giants (nor any NFL team) can’t simple give Dansby 20 million this year and then a few million per after that. They might be able to give him a one-year deal for a bunch of money but that’s not how you build a team and I don’t see the Giants doing it. Players like longer term deals anyway for the security (which is why they don’t like the franchise tag).
