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The Saints will be almost $100M over the salary cap next year!


Doc

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19 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

That’s why I would wonder, cause teams generally sneak under. 
Keep kicking the can down the road but at some point you have to run out of moves to make right? They’re basically at the point they need the reset year. Fire sale all the vets and cut all the higher salary and eat the dead cap year and regroup with a fresh slate. 

You can keep restructuring, adding years, etc. But yeah, there is a limit to what you can do.

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24 minutes ago, Rc2catch said:

That’s why I would wonder, cause teams generally sneak under. 
Keep kicking the can down the road but at some point you have to run out of moves to make right? They’re basically at the point they need the reset year. Fire sale all the vets and cut all the higher salary and eat the dead cap year and regroup with a fresh slate. 


 

that’s the cap game.  You do well try to win but then one year you might need to take a dead cap space hit and retool.

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1 hour ago, Rc2catch said:

Oh I thought when they retired the dead cap hit went away cause they’re basically forfeiting the rest of the money. I’m not a cap professional lol

Neither is anyone else contributing to this thread.

 

 

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59 minutes ago, MJS said:

Why wouldn't they be able to? 

 

Math?

 

It will likely be a multi-year problem because of that.

 

Their cap situation is extraordinary.  

 

Worse than the early 2000's Bills but the difference was the Bills new GM wanted to use a short term cap problem as an excuse to totally gut the team of  it's players, systems and identity.  

 

Sean Peyton worked thru a 3 year run of 7-9 seasons prior to their recent run so the Saints might be willing to just do a couple year reset and try to keep their systems, identity and management structure in place.

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21 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:

 

Math?

 

It will likely be a multi-year problem because of that.

 

Their cap situation is extraordinary.  

 

Worse than the early 2000's Bills but the difference was the Bills new GM wanted to use a short term cap problem as an excuse to totally gut the team of  it's players, systems and identity.  

 

Sean Peyton worked thru a 3 year run of 7-9 seasons prior to their recent run so the Saints might be willing to just do a couple year reset and try to keep their systems, identity and management structure in place.

They'll get under the cap. They have to. The team may look pretty different though.

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8 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:


its amazing how highly leveraged the Saints have been for years. I remember when they signed Jairus Byrd way back when, and they were way over the cap even then and folks were scratching their heads. They always seem to find a way to restructure everyone. 

yes like the Washington old names use to do every year for awhile.

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Couple of points:

 

1. They are only $100m over if the cap does go down to the agreed floor. PFT seemed to think in December teams (because a lot of teams close to the cap would be hurt be a reduction) are lobbying the league to keep the cap stagnant at around $195-200m. That takes their overspend down to about $80m if it happens and in fairness to the Saints when they were long term planning they'd have been projecting for a cap tat about $225m in 2021.... which would mean the gap would only have been about $50m. So yes, they are in trouble, even if the cap stays stagnant but it isn't all their fault. 

 

2. They did the right thing. They loaded up on free agents the past couple of years for a last un with Drew Brees - Jared Cook, Demario Davis, Malcolm Jenkins, Malcolm Brown, Kwon Alexander, Emmanuel Sanders, Latavius Murray, signing decent priced backup QBs in Bridgewater, Winston and Hill.... when you have a vet QB at the end you try and give him ready made win now guys in free agency and then you pay the piper later on. We have seen it this year with New England and we have seen it now with the Saints. 

 

3. There are a few relatively easy cuts (the likes of Sanders, Brown, Janoris Jenkins) plus Drew retiring and an easy extension for Lattimore that crashes his hit for 2021 and backloads his money. That gets them about half way there and that was almost certainly the basis of their planning. The problem is the pandemic means that even if the cap stays pretty stable they remain $25m or thereabouts short.... and if it goes down to the agreed floor they are $50m short. I think they probably have to restructure Thomas and kick the can on his deal (which I think ideally they wouldn't do) and make a decision upfront on their expensive offensive line. 

 

4. It is not a good situation and it is cap hell. Once you are in the position of having no choice but to cut contributing starters that is the definition of cap hell. It is why I have always insisted the Bills were not in "cap hell" when Beane took over.... though it was a nice soundbite for the new regime to throw out. This is what cap hell looks like and it is worse than the Patriots situation where they had a 2020 cap crunch that cleared almost totally in one year (though the opt outs then made that a bit trickier, but had all things been equal the Pats would have been in clear cap waters again in 2021) this situation is a 3 year cleanup job in New Orleans. 

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8 hours ago, Rc2catch said:

Oh I thought when they retired the dead cap hit went away cause they’re basically forfeiting the rest of the money. I’m not a cap professional lol

No, otherwise teams would do this all the time.  The cap hit comes from the annual salary plus signing bonus which is spread over the length of the contract.  A lot of these bonuses are huge and spread over long periods (to minimize the impact over any single year) but then when the contract is terminated early the remainder gets added to the cap all in a year or two .

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8 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:


its amazing how highly leveraged the Saints have been for years. I remember when they signed Jairus Byrd way back when, and they were way over the cap even then and folks were scratching their heads. They always seem to find a way to restructure everyone. 

Not signing Brees to a longer contract years ago has hurt them

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26 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

Couple of points:

 

1. They are only $100m over if the cap does go down to the agreed floor. PFT seemed to think in December teams (because a lot of teams close to the cap would be hurt be a reduction) are lobbying the league to keep the cap stagnant at around $195-200m. That takes their overspend down to about $80m if it happens and in fairness to the Saints when they were long term planning they'd have been projecting for a cap tat about $225m in 2021.... which would mean the gap would only have been about $50m. So yes, they are in trouble, even if the cap stays stagnant but it isn't all their fault. 

 

2. They did the right thing. They loaded up on free agents the past couple of years for a last un with Drew Brees - Jared Cook, Demario Davis, Malcolm Jenkins, Malcolm Brown, Kwon Alexander, Emmanuel Sanders, Latavius Murray, signing decent priced backup QBs in Bridgewater, Winston and Hill.... when you have a vet QB at the end you try and give him ready made win now guys in free agency and then you pay the piper later on. We have seen it this year with New England and we have seen it now with the Saints. 

 

3. There are a few relatively easy cuts (the likes of Sanders, Brown, Janoris Jenkins) plus Drew retiring and an easy extension for Lattimore that crashes his hit for 2021 and backloads his money. That gets them about half way there and that was almost certainly the basis of their planning. The problem is the pandemic means that even if the cap stays pretty stable they remain $25m or thereabouts short.... and if it goes down to the agreed floor they are $50m short. I think they probably have to restructure Thomas and kick the can on his deal (which I think ideally they wouldn't do) and make a decision upfront on their expensive offensive line. 

 

4. It is not a good situation and it is cap hell. Once you are in the position of having no choice but to cut contributing starters that is the definition of cap hell. It is why I have always insisted the Bills were not in "cap hell" when Beane took over.... though it was a nice soundbite for the new regime to throw out. This is what cap hell looks like and it is worse than the Patriots situation where they had a 2020 cap crunch that cleared almost totally in one year (though the opt outs then made that a bit trickier, but had all things been equal the Pats would have been in clear cap waters again in 2021) this situation is a 3 year cleanup job in New Orleans. 

This is an excellent synopsis. Here are my calculations, presuming that the league bumps the cap up to around $200 million, leaving them $80 million over:

  • Brees retiring  saves about $13.5 million
  • Releasing Kwon Alexander saves $13.4 million
  • Releasing Sanders saves $6.5 million
  • Taysom Hill is prime candidate for restructure, release would save $5 million, restructure potentially more, call it $7 million
  • The above 4 saves $40.5 million, halfway there
  • That's where it gets tough: Oline possibilities: Ramczyk ($11m), Armstead ($5.6m), Nick Easton ($6m)
  • Janoris Jenkins cut would save $7m, restructure less, M. Brown cut would save $5m
  • Probably can find 4-5 more that will save an average of $2m each

If you notice there are a lot of players who if released their dead cap is close to equal or even more than the cap hit if on the roster. The years of restructure and going for it while they have had Brees is really coming back to bite them now. While they have been able to restructure their way out of it in the past I think they will have to make far tougher decisions this offseason and they could be pretty bad in 2021.

Problem is they have 46 under contract so if they release 8-10 from above now they have 36-38 players so at least 15 roster spots to fill. They need money for their draft picks and to fill the rest of the roster spots, so they would probably need at least $20 million. They will have to get very creative.

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9 hours ago, Doc said:

 

If he pays it back, it can.  But teams don't usually ask for it if they're a legend like him.  Hell the Colts even let Luck keep his signing bonus.

 

And Irsay made Ralph look like a spend thrift, well at least the old man did.

 

 

WRT to cap saving I see Brees is listed a cap hit of $36 mil and dead cap of $22.6.  For the cap saving do you basically subtract the dead from the hit?

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9 hours ago, Doc said:

My son alerted me to this earlier today.  Look at this and tell me where are they ever going to clear that amount of money and still be able to field a team?

 

Take the 10-15 highest paid players on a base salary perspective.  If you want to keep them, you push base salary into restructure bonus - or extend them, and worry about it later when the cap is higher.  The other option is to trade/release some solid players on expiring deals with no dead money.  

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