New York Giants 2024 Training Camp Preview: DL Casey Rogers

Rogers signed a standard undrafted free-agent contract with the Giants following the 2024 NFL Draft. The three-year contract is worth $2,850,000, with just $220,000 guaranteed.

Rogers’ deal is unique for an undrafted free agent, as that $220,000 guarantee is one of the highest that any undrafted free agent received this offseason. The Cardinals gave Xavier Weaver $255,000 guaranteed, which was the highest amount that any undrafted free agent received this year.

The guarantee Rogers received includes $20,000 as a prorated signing bonus, which is split evenly as $6,666 through the first two years and $6,668 in 2026. $200,000 of Rogers’ salary in 2024 is guaranteed, so if he were to get cut before the season, that would leave the Giants with $206,666 in dead money while creating $595,000 in cap space.

That’s not a high enough dead cap hit to say that Rogers is safe from being cut before the season, especially when his dead cap hit would only be that $6,666 amount in 2025 and 2026. 

In the long term, the Giants have plenty of interior defensive linemen on contract after this season, but the odds are that they will cut ties with some of the veterans who can save cap space after this season.

I’m not sure what Rogers’ immediate impact can be in 2024 and I would think of him as more of a potential practice squad addition for the Giants this season. He’s shown some promise as a pass-rusher, and that’s likely why the Giants viewed him highly enough to add him after the draft.

This is another one of those players that I look to new Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, and I think this might have been an addition for which he saw a specific role.

At Oregon under defensive coordinator Dan Lanning, the team used stunts to generate pressure as part of their defensive system that tries to generate pressure without being too aggressive and sacrificing coverage by blitzing.

Bowen is another defensive coordinator who likes to generate pressure using stunts, as he did with the Tennessee Titans. Rogers has experience and found success operating as a stuntman with the Ducks, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Bowen saw his film there and decided that he wanted to add that to his defense. 

If he does make the initial roster, I wouldn’t expect to see too much out of Rogers unless it’s an obvious passing-down situation. The flip side is that if the Giants want to place him on the practice squad, there’s the possibility that another team can come in and sign him off of their practice squad.

I do think if he makes the practice squad, another team will try to poach him off of it because, usually, when a player signs an undrafted contract with as much guaranteed money as Rogers received, it’s because other teams are interested.