The Giants released quarterback Daniel Jones, ending an awkward episode in which Jones was buried on the depth chart not because of his skills but because of $23 million in injury guarantees for 2025.

This decision still has financial consequences.

First, his $35.5 million salary this year remains fully guaranteed. They will owe him $1.97 million per week for the rest of the regular season.

The Giants will be entitled to compensation for whatever he earns elsewhere, unless he chooses to take the balance of the 2024 salary as severance pay. (It will first go through exemptions, and it will probably not be claimed.)

So, they won’t save any cash or cap space for 2024. For 2025, they won’t owe him anything. Based on the initial signing bonus ($36 million) and the restructuring of his base salary for 2023 (which increased the figure from $9.5 million to $1.08 million and split the prorated balance), the Giants will take home $22.21 million in dead money for Jones in 2025.

It’s unclear why the Giants cut Jones. At a minimum, they should have requested a waiver of the ability to avoid compensation through the severance provision.

Even then, the Giants lost the option to release him after June 1 in March, which would have split the cap evenly between 2025 and 2026, or $11.105 million per year.