New York Giants

Report: Giants confident in getting Eli deal done soon

Published Jul. 21, 2015 9:30 a.m. ET

foxsports

For a while, signs pointed to Eli Manning playing out the final year of his contract with the New York Giants in 2015. But we should have known better. That's not how the Giants have done business in the past, and that's not how they're going to do things now with their franchise player.

According to the NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, the Giants and Manning will be coming to a contract extension agreement sooner than we expected:

"This is another one where the Giants hope to do a deal either before training camp or early on in training camp," Rapoport said on NFL Network's Total Access. "My understanding is the Giants brass is confident in doing a deal in due time. Actually, just talking to people on both sides of this, it seems to make sense for both sides to do a deal, one that they think and hope will get done this year. Remember, Eli Manning is set to make $17 million and a contract extension will give him only a little bit of a raise but will help the cap number, something the Giants certainly would like to do."

According to OverTheCap.com, the Giants are just $4.52 million under the NFL's salary cap, and they have the third-least cap space among all 32 teams. Manning's 2015 cap hit currently stands at $19.75 million. Depending on the structure of Manning's new long-term deal, that cap hit can be significantly lowered for the 2015 season. This would allow the Giants to pursue the free agent market for any roster fix-ups they deem necessary after or during training camp.

In June, Manning's agent Tom Condon expressed confidence that a long-term deal would get done. His line of reasoning--the quarterbacks always get done. In a couple of weeks, or maybe even a couple of days, we will get to find out if Condon was correct.

(h/t NFL Network)