As the Giants continue to shape their 53-man roster ahead of their regular season opener against the Tennessee Titans, the team made a surprising move on Thursday afternoon, releasing veteran linebacker Blake Martinez.
Martinez, 28, signed a three-year deal with Big Blue worth roughly $31 million ahead of the 2020 season. By releasing Martinez now, the Giants will save nearly $3.7 million in cap space, but also take on $4 million in dead cap for this season.
In an effort to keep him around heading into this year's training camp, the Giants restructured Martinez's contract earlier this offseason, lowering his cap hit down from where it originally stood at just over $14 million for 2022. But the linebacker still found himself on the outside looking in.
After a strong season in 2020, Martinez played in just three games in 2021 before being placed on IR due to a torn ACL.
By most accounts, Martinez did not have a very strong training camp, and the transition to a new scheme under defensive coordinator Wink Martindale certainly didn’t help matters for the Stanford product.
In all, Martinez played in 19 games in a Giants uniform, combining for 174 tackles, 3.0 sacks, one interception and one fumble recovery.