Over the past few seasons Tiki Barber has inarguably been the New York Giants' most valuable player on offense and now, it appears, the star tailback has become a go-to guy off the field as well.

	Barber

For a second consecutive year, ESPN.com has learned, Barber has reworked the six-year contract that he originally signed with the Giants in the spring of '01, to help create salary cap wiggle room. Just as he did last spring, Barber completed a so-called "simple restructuring" for the coming season, and the move reduced his 2003 salary cap value by $1.5 million.

While the bookkeeping maneuver didn't cost Barber any compensation that was due him in 2003, its significance is reflected in the club's current salary cap status, with the Giants only $821,406 under the league spending limit of $75 million, according to NFL Players Association documents.

As of Sunday morning, only six teams had less cap room than the Giants.

Barber was to have earned a base salary of $3.525 million for 2003, but that was reduced to $1.525 million, and the $2 million balance was guaranteed. That allowed Giants officials to essentially treat the $2 million as a signing bonus and to prorate it over the 2003-2006 seasons.

The result was that Barber's salary cap charge for 2003 dropped from $5.1 million to $3.6 million. The maneuver did, though, increase his already high cap charges for the ensuing three seasons of his contract by $500,000 each year: to $6.053 million in 2004 and $6.328 million in both 2005 and 2006.

Those future cap values could mean the Giants will be forced to restructure the Barber contract again next spring.

New York will almost certainly have to make more moves, by restructuring other existing contracts or releasing players, to create enough cap space to sign draft choices and perhaps add veteran free agents. The Giants still have five more players with 2003 cap charges of more than $4 million, and three veterans have cap numbers of more than $5 million.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.