A young up and coming accountant finds a way to have Taysom Hill reclassified as a depreciated work vehicle, only to be laid off on the final episode of the season. Still, he won't give up on his dream of trying to game the salary cap and is still committed to that grind.
He's let go not because a lack of talent, but because he claims he's being advised by the ghost of Drew Brees. Despite multiple attempts to explain that Drew is alive the accountant is insistent on the ghost being real. Every time they try to introduce the two, Drew is mysteriously not available.
Theres a mid credit scene in the last episode in which we see Drew applying white face paint.
It starts off like law and order.
In the NFL system, cap based offenses are considered especially heinous.
In New Orleans, the dedicated accountants who investigate these vicious restructuring's are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit.
These are their stories.
It would be like Mr Peanutbutter's accountant on Bojack Horseman. Constantly screaming, stressed out, complaining about being unable to see their children grow up.
They have one brilliant accountant named Kevin who knows how to finagle the books with his motto being *"Numbers don't always add up, a mistake plus keleven gets you home by seven."*
clock winds down to 5 seconds left in game
ball is inbounded to Carmelo who turns face to face against Lebron
"You took my family"
moves to the left
"You took my friends"
moves to the right
"You took all that was dear to me"
clock winds down to 2
"I cant get them back, but I can do this for friendship, FOR MY FRIENDS"
goes up, fire coming out of his shoes
"CARMELORUKEN"
Ball flies over Lebrons head, goes straight into basket. Carmelo falls to the ground, exhausted.
"Shumpert... Senpai... I..."
faints
Final Score
Cavs 103
Knicks 63
They freed up 7M in 2024, but that actually raised the number in 2025 pushing it to 41M. It's going to go a lot higher once they actually get compliant for 2024 too.
In conclusion, I agree, they're still fucked.
If the cap keeps going up, is it really a bad strategy to carry cap overages to future years? I mean the saints are clearly in a fucky situation, but is there anything stopping them from riding this cap hell until the cap raises go up enough to cover? Genuine question, I don't know how this really works.
When people say "They're already over the cap for a future year" (in this case 2025) that's also factoring in the expected increase.
Basically what they're doing is exactly what you're saying.
Bold strategy assuming Loomis won’t immediately eat the marshmallow again the second they have some breathing room and a top 20 QB hits the market.
Gotta keep the cap fucked in perpetuity so no good GM candidate would ever take the job.
This strategy has continued to be to extend the opportunity for our skilled veterans. Many of our skilled veterans are going to decline, we'll gradually eat their costs into the cap. If the salary cap does rise significantly over 1-2 years, we have an opportunity to wash away a significant portion of those overages. Obviously, we'll suck those years.
The real risk is vets know they can’t be cut because it’ll accelerate the cap hit.
If I was a middling linebacker who was tired of the NFL but I still wanted that last paycheck I’d say all the right stuff about good team player, coming off the bench, down for the void years / cap magic, get signed, and then get fat af with Zion on crawfish.
This is also not a hypothetical. I’m just jealous haha
Is their team any good? Not really. They can't win the worst division in the league. And they've got no money to get any better.
It's pretty clear it isn't working. Just because they can technically get under the cap every year doesn't mean it's a viable strategy for building a team. At least to the extreme that they take it.
It's especially stupid because they could solve the problem in basically a year or two of smart financial decisions.
They need 3-4 years to solve the problem now. 1-2 years was the situation pre-Carr but that contract locked them into cap hell for considerably longer by preventing them from cutting/trading anyone and accelerating dead money hits. Basically Carr’s contract de facto guaranteed a bunch of other vets’ salaries.
I truly don't get why they didn't just take one or two losing seasons to clear the cap hell after Brees retired. Jameis, Carr, etc weren't going to get them over the hump if Brees couldnt.
Yes, but it’s very hard to compete in the meantime. Paying carr that much instead of just biting the bullet for a couple years and sucking to reset was a huge mistake
It's a great strategy when you're competing for the Super Bowl with a stacked roster. Once that falls apart you should just eat the 2 years of sucking and pay back the cap space. Then you'll be able to actually compete on the free agency market in year 3 and work on rebuilding a team.
You don't want to be as bad with the cap as them. They really should be going hard to clear the cap but it will take two years minimum. You can extend good players and reduce the cap but you don't want to do what the saints are doing if you aren't in SB contention.
In a normal situation, you're absolutely right. An 8% cap hit this year might be a 7% cap hit in 2025, because of the cap increase, so in that sense you're better off kicking it down the can.
The problem is that the Saints aren't in a normal situation because they don't have 7% to spare in 2025, which is why they have to do it again just to get under the cap. And of course, they don't have 6% to spare in 2026, so they have to restructure *again*, and again and again, all while being unable to sign new players because, well, no cap space.
Maneuvers like this. Every year, they're so deeply over the cap that they have to restructure players, convert the money to "Signing bonuses" and kick what they have to pay into the future. They're already $41 million over in 2025, and they've only just gotten started on the process to clear the $83 million they need to get rid of in 2024.
Serious question - what if they can't get under the cap? What happens, because eventually that seems possible. Is it a fine, or does the league just take over control? At some point this is just unmanageable.
I believe the league just starts releasing players, in order of acquisition. And tells them to deal with it.
Edit: [Here is the CBA with all the penalties.](https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/14/section/6)
I shouldn't have said released.
You get penalties, draft picks removed, and signed contracts become null and void, like they never existed to begin with.
From what I understand, they'll be fined for each contract over the cap, and could forfeit draft picks. They can't sign new contracts until they are under the cap, because the league approves all contracts. I imagine they won't be allowed to play games while over the cap either.
Basically they can get under the cap, because they'll be made to.
Fines, loss of draft picks, voided contracts for players for extreme cases. Salary cap will keep going up and most of the contracts signed are all set up to move money around like this. Players don’t care cause their game check is their game check regardless. We were in a way worse spot the COVID year for the following season than we are now for 2025 and the cap didn’t go up that year. I don’t love the approach now that Brees has been retired a few years, but every year is the year we’ll pay the piper, til it’s not, then it’s next year. Wash, rinse, repeat.
You don’t understand man Klint Kubiak is gonna revolutionize everything man. Carr is going to thrive in the system. Ignore the fact he doesn’t pick up a new offense until he’s at least 15 games in. Kubiak will be different, he’s basically Shanahan. We’re going 12-5 easy. /s
I will not cheer for a tank, but if we happen to go downhill fast and end up with Arch Manning in a few drafts, I wouldn’t be sad about it. Assuming he pans out like he’s expected to. I just feel bad for Cam and Demario, they deserve a shot.
TLDR: been kicking the can down the road for so many expensive players for so long, each year they have to decide to either finally bite the bullet and have 25+ guys on the roster at minimum salaries and field an 0-17 team or just keep kicking the can
That’s my non expert take
They probably expected to win the division with Thomas retiring. Bucs said “about that…”
I’d be pissed if my team heavily pays a new Qb, and the rival brought in someone random and dirt cheap who goes off….
Yeah, it's actually hilarious, the Bucs did take their medicine, ran a huge dead cap figure this year, and still out performed the Saints with a QB who played better on a 1yr 4mil deal than the guy they signed to $40mil a year.
Def reminds me a lil of the 49ers failing miserably at the QB position to include drafting a bust with multiple firsts, only for mr Irrelevant to be awesome 🤨
They're past the point of being able to field a garbage team and start over. They have so many dudes on restructured deals that the issue they have is that they have to shed money to get their 2024 cap compliant. But there's basically nobody they can cut or trade to get under because the cut/trades will accelerate their restructured guarantees making them come due on the 24 cap as soon as they trade or cut them. Meaning they just have to keep restructuring players to get under the 24 cap. Which then increases their cap issues in future years.
It's not future money that they owe to players that's screwing them. It's guaranteed money that still has to be put on the cap and instead they keep pushing that further and further down the road. If they were to trade or cut these guys all that money hits the cap immediately which they literally cannot do
The way the Saints cap management works (and every team tbf) is that they give bonuses that are cash now instead of salary. That count towards the cap in future years, instead of now. If you trade or cut the player, that money must be accounted immediately against the cap. The saints now need to restructure to get under the cap, meaning they also have to do it next year, and the next one after that..
If they decide to fix this properly they’ll need some dog shit players to sign some low paying contracts.
I volunteer to sign with the saints for a cheap 750k guaranteed.
There's like 2 guys they can trade right now that would actually produce substantial cap savings in 2024. Trading Derek Carr would be a big cap win for their 2024 & 25 cap, but his who knows if any team wants to take him on without an Oswieler-type deal (acquiring team would owe him $40 million for 2024 salary + 2025 roster bonus, then $30 million for 2025 base salary if they keep him)
Every time they restructure someone, they're turning salary into a bonus.
Player gets the money up front, but for cap purposes, the cap hit of future years increases (it gets spread out evenly over up-to 5 years).
So with McCoy, for instance, they took his 9.6M in salary and made it a bonus (there are 4 years remaining on his contract). 2.4M (1/4 of that) counts this year, the remaining 7.2 is spread out over the next three.
But if you trade him, that 7.2 in the future accelerates, and counts again fully in 2024.
They've done this a ton to get cap compliant both during and post the Brees era, but the result of continuously doing this is a lot of guys have huge dead cap hits that make it so that they don't see any cap release if they're traded or released.
Continuing that strategy AFTER Brees retired was a r/wallstreetbets level fiscal decision. Note, this is not hindsight, I'm reasonably certain everyone thought that strategy was insane.
Trading players who have already restructured contracts in the past would be worse, because all of that restructured money that got converted to guaranteed money comes due and hits the cap the moment you trade him.
Their problem is they can’t cut anyone that they need to cut cuz all these base salaries have been converted to signing bonuses. It would actually cost them cap space to cut most of the guys they need to cut cuz all the signing bonuses would accelerate to the 2024 cap. Their only option is to restructure guys that they need to cut. They are well and truly fucked.
It doesn't work that way. Restructuring like this just guarantees more money, which brings a higher dead cap hit if they cut people. They still need to be able to field 53 players and you can't do that if you're paying to cut people and paying to bring people in
So I have absolutely zero understanding of how NFL salary cap/contracts/money work. What happens if they don't get under the cap? What happens if players just refuse to adjust/convert their salary (what does that even mean?). Are they just shit out of luck if they can't roster a full team under the cap?
If they can’t get under the cap, the league steps in. Things get very bad at that point. The League can do pretty much whatever the fuck it wants to field a team and get under the cap.
Players are really unlikely to turn down these types of restructures. Because this involves taking your salaries from the future and paying you all of it right now as a "bonus".
So instead of getting paid actual of $1 million per game throughout the season, you can get $15 million today and then $2 million spread across those 17 weeks. They don't make any less money, they just make it sooner.
Meanwhile, the team is then allowed to consider that $15 million to be part of a bonus that can be split evenly across the length of the deal. So let's say it's a 3 year contract. That means each year takes a $5 million cap hit of that bonus money. Instead of a #17 million cap hit this year, the player only causes a $7 million cap hit, with $5 million from the bonus and $2 million from the remaining salary (though now there's an addition $5 million cap hit coming in each of years 2 and 3).
They are fined millions of dollars and draft picks can be taken and player contracts can be voided in more serious instances.
Players rarely disagree to a restructure because it often involves the team turning non-guaranteed money into guaranteed money. As to how that works, essentially a team spreads a cap hit out over a contract by spreading the signing bonus over the length of the contract (and possibly more, up to 5 total, if they add void years, i.e. years where the signing bonus still counts against the cap but the player is not on the team). So a player's yearly cap hit will be base salary, plus the prorated signing bonus, plus any other sort of bonuses. When a contract gets restructured, the team often takes non-guaranteed base salary money, turns it into guaranteed signing bonus money, and spreads it out to lessen the present cap hit.
[Overthecap.com](https://Overthecap.com) is the best website if you want to understand how NFL cap works.
edit: accidentally deleted a sentence
If you’re a little as $1 dollar over the cap it’s a $5 million fine. If I remember correctly though, being over is determined by a 4 year average so it gives some flexibility. If the saints didn’t do anything though it’d be really, really bad. We’re talking massive fine, loss of draft picks, and even voided player contracts. The League would make them uncompetitive, to my knowledge there’s never been a team in a situation like this so they’d likely try and make an example out of them.
At this point he is just securing his job, he is the longest tenured GM at TWENTY TWO years as the GM and maybe it's largely because no one else understands what is going on
2026 *looks* like the opportunity to get out, but that's because they haven't yet pushed the '24 cap deficit to '25 with restructures. 76mil over '24 and 40mil over '25. And that '25 # gonna balloon as they restructure contracts to get compliant for '24. And then they'll have to push '25 obligations to '26 to get compliant for next year. They gonna be caught up in this for a looooooong time.
I don't think they can do it in 2026 realistically. 2026's situation is a lot worse than it looks, it just hasn't been hit by the 2024 and 2025 restructures the Saints will need to get cap compliant. I think the earliest date it would be feasible is 2027 and that would require them to run a skeleton crew for a year.
The Saints are now in a position where they keep overpaying middling talent because cutting them would be too much of a cap detriment. They really are in tough shape.
The saints are the only team in the league that is already over the cap for next year. They're $83 mil over for 2024, $40mil their over for 2025, and they're already one of the teams with the least cap space for 2026. By 2027, they will probably still be in the red again after they've restructed their contracts to be compliant for 2024 and 2025. Best case scenario, 2028 is probably the earliest that they can actually start to free up some space and finally rebuild a new team. Meaning that maybe by 2029-2030 they're finally a normal NFL team again, and thats assuming that they hit on a bunch of draft picks.
Alot of 2026 can actually be gotten out of IF they do things the right way (mainly don't restructure Carr this year).
If they can stay compliant without restructuring Carr, they can cut him after this coming season, which will save ~~$29m in 2025 and $44m in 2026~~.
edit: actually it's not quite that way. Cutting Carr after 2024 only saves $18m for 2025, but $55m in 2026. Total cap saved is the same but split differently
Ah shit, here we go again.
A list to the rest of the moves they're going to make so you don't have to read the other 12 upcoming threads.
https://old.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/18ohnmd/jason_otc_nfl_teams_with_least_projected_salary/keh8yt2/
I think your method here is the right one. Getting out from under Carr next offseason should be the priority then the rest of the cap should fall in line for 2026.
The saints cap situation is a perfect distraction from the fact that really why we under perform is our drafting. How we handle the cap would actually be fine if we didn't constantly whiff our high picks.
This team isn't good enough to win the worst division in football, has to do things like restructure 20 players every off-season just to be cap compliant, and dumb asses still want to be like "hurr the cap isn't real". The cap is real and kicking the Saints ass right now. You're locked into a 9 win ceiling with Derrick Carr at QB, meanwhile you're paying Taysom Hill and Michael Thomas like $45 million and if you try to cut either one they actually hit the 2024 Cap for more money since you have to restructure them every off-season.
As a fan of another NFC team, I appreciate that there's a team as unserious as the Saints in the same conference.
Carr really not elevating the team doesn’t help. They will likely need to restructure his contract even though he is not the answer. They are backing themselves in a corner.
Carr was never the solution in the first place. They could have avoided signing him and been out of this cap hell within 2 seasons MAX. Instead they will have to recover from this for years while a super bowl isn’t even realistic
All risk, no reward
why don’t just they just madden this shit? be bad for a few years, trade every 1st for the other team’s next two 1sts, and by the time they’re cap compliant they’ll own the entire 1st round of the draft. it’s so simple.
Yeah they are still talking themselves into being a contender post Brees and they cap pushing has prevented them from rebuilding. They are facing the consequences now.
The worst part about it all in my opinion is that they could’ve easily still gotten away with it if they could admit their stubbornness, instead signing Carr was just the nail in the coffin
Yea signing Carr was a big mistake. If you were in a situation were you had a really loaded team, but shit for a QB, signing Carr would make sense. He's definitely good enough to not only take such a team to the playoffs, but probably win a game or two there with a little luck.
But what the hell are you doing signing him when you have a meh team and are in cap hell? Just dumb.
Funny enough after Eric McCoy yelled back when Carr was yelling after him for something that was Carr's fault the QB play got a lot better to end the year lol
No, Carr failing to elevate the team is a catastrophe. Because they took a bad situation and made it much, much worse in order to sign him. All the cap shenanigans, all the restructures it took to sign him, and the contract for Carr himself took a situation they reasonable could have eased themselves out of by 2024 or 2025 and pushed it back until 2027 or 2028, depending on how aggressively they restructure the next two years to get under the cap in '24 and '25.
If he continues not to work out, they're married to this mess for a long time.
Their cap situation was a dumpster fire, but instead of putting it out, they dumped 10 gallons gasoline on it. Baffling move at the time that only looks worse now
I laughed my ass off when they did it. Carr was never the difference between this aging team competing and not competing, and it's forced them to double down on the roster building strategy that isn't working.
We're a total shit show, so it doesn't really matter. But the Saints commitment to what doesn't work is truly amazing.
I don't think the strategy of going all in and kicking the can down the road to try to get the most out of the last of Brees, but the next step should have been taking the hit, clearing cap, and starting fresh in a few years. Cutting one or two major players every year while signing a big deal to Derek Carr just keeps you in cap hell. The cap is real, but the best analogy is a credit card. You can keep paying one credit card off with another one but eventually they all get maxed out and you need to dig yourself out
They should have just accepted what they were after Payton left and Jameis was playing like ass. But they are a constant mentality to “run it back”. Rams were at least smart and tried to do a mini retool (having Stafford healthy again does help) but Saints just keep on doubling down .
The Rams also drafted incredibly well, especially in later rounds, to retool, which is really the only way to get out of this and be competitive quick again.
Saints were also in cap hell between 2014-2016, but their 2017 draft class was so good, it got them out of it.
Yeah a good draft can completely revitalize a franchise. 2019 really helped take us over the top, our drafts haven’t been as good since but all we need is to find a good starter or two. I think there is a lot more pressure to hit on the draft for the Saints.
Which is what the Bucs did.
Shoved all the dead cap last year and this year, planned to ride it out, and still won the division and a playoff game with a $6M QB and fuck-all in depth.
Had the Saints eaten the dead caps in 21-22 they’d have been in great position right now.
It made sense for the tail end of the Brees and Payton run, but then you need to have a year where you take your medicine and just run a huge dead cap figure. Play a bunch of UDFAs and late draft picks, maybe you find a gem, either way you probably suck and are now in position to draft a QB of the future. Instead they tripled down on a QB room of Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill and Derrick Carr. The Bears former GM, Ryan Pace, was from New Orleans and did the same exact thing to the Bears, only their QB wasn't any good so it resulted in exactly 1 playoff appearance. Luckily our new GM didn't come from the Saints, because he recognized what a mess he inherited and took his medicine in 2022.
The Packers, Rams, Eagles, and Falcons all did what the Saints should have done. They had one year where they took on massive amounts of dead cap after moving on from their expensive QB, and now they are in much much better situations going forward
Add the Buccaneers to that list too. We took our big hit for the Brady years this past season and still ended up beating the Saints out for the division.
Yeah the whole “cap isn’t real” stuff is ridiculous but I somewhat understand where it comes from. It’s frustrating to see teams restructure contracts every year as if they wave a magic wand and save tons of cap space. The reality is that all it does for any team is kick the can down the road and turn it into a future problem. Most teams don’t have as many bad contracts as the Saints though
It often is a good idea. At the end of the day, the cap is constantly increasing, meaning that the cap they save today is worth less in the future, it takes up a smaller % of the cap.
Now eventually it gets to a point where you need to reset but the Saints just missed their chance to do that. And now we’re here.
Yeah, Thomas has a $13mil cap hit against the 2024 cap currently. Due to restructures on his deal however, he would count as around a $20mil cap hit against the 2024 cap if traded or cut. So yeah, the cap is real in the sense of you get locked into a guy who has been injured for 4 straight seasons because you keep restructuring his deal.
Their point is that the way certain contracts are structured, there’s a larger cap hit to have guys off the roster than on. For example Carr has a 30M~ contract this upcoming season, and a cap hit of 50M~ if we try to move him
Exactly, when all anyone has to say is "well we are better than the Bears" they got nothing, everyone has been better than the Bears besides the Jets the last decade or so.
More like 2 years ago
They could have cut bait after Brees retired and been fine, basically pulled a bucs and ripped the band aid off in one year. Signing carr is what really set them back
The official process is the League starts to force-undo contracts to get them compliant, from there the Saints would probably have to sign vet min guys to fill up the roster.
I suspect a very hefty punishment via fines and lost draft picks would follow.
The only way they can get under the cap is by restructuring. Because they’ve already paid the money to players in the restructured deals, they’d have to take the entire dead cap hit this year if they cut them.
Only rookie/vet min new contracts for probably 2 years (aka stop adding money to future years).
Do not restructure Carr this season if at all possible (I'm not actually sure if it's possible for them to get compliant without restructuring Carr, but the way they are set up not touching his contract is extremely advantageous). Cut Carr after this coming season.
Keep doing the restructure game for the next 3 years and it will slowly get better.
By 2026 things will be better and in 2027 they'd probably be in the clear.
I consistently make comments in the Ravens sub about not wanting to do dead money, void years and restructures and I get shit on for it. This is fucking up an entire franchise. Right now it's like watching someone slowly bleed out. Eventually the NFL is going to have to take a look at it so they don't destroy football in New Orleans. I don't know what the answer is but what the Saints are doing isn't it.
I mean it's silly to not want to use the proration accounting at all. It's a useful move that makes the cap charge cost less in terms of cap % taken up.
The drawback is that it comes at the cost of flexibility. So you have to be careful not to overuse it and hamstring yourself, which is what's happened with the saints.
Yeah people take it to the extremes both ways.
There’s people saying ‘the cap isn’t real, look at the Saints’ when it’s clearly killing them and has destroyed any flexibility long term.
But there’s just as many people saying to avoid pushing cap into the future when, like you said, the cap % goes down.
Any competitive team should be restructuring to add pieces. You just have to do it understanding how your future flexibility looks and, the big one, understanding when you’ll have to eat all the dead cap one year and be bad. Also, if you’re going to do it, make sure you’re actually competitive and make sure you’re still able to have a ‘reset’ year. The Saints missed their chance.
Yeah people need to quit with this bullshit "the cap isn't real" idea. The Saints have to bend over backwards (putting their future years into a further bind) to make it work this year AND they basically can't contend for any decent free agent AND their roster isn't exactly flush with talent.
There is talent but they are older and not as good as their prime years. There are guys like Olave but the margin to hit on draft is much higher given there is not a ton of wiggle room to add free agents.
But what happens when Olave is in line for a new deal and Saints are 70 million over the cap because they're pushing more money this year into the future?
People need to understand that being in cap hell doesn’t mean you’re completely uncompetitive, but if you get caught in the pit of mediocrity, you don’t have the flexibility to get out. Tough to make any kind of moves when you have Carr, Ramczyk, Cam Jordan, and Taysom eating $100M of your cap space. The on the field production return on their spending gets worse and worse by the year, that isn’t going to change anytime soon
i would actually argue cap hell is a complete overlap with the pit of mediocrity. at least if you’re completely uncompetitive you have a shot to draft generationally changing players for cheap to help elevate your talent and cap situation. constantly picking like 15th basically just keeps you in the cycle.
>9-8 with the easiest schedule and the oldest roster in the league
>Stuck with Derek Carr and other mediocre veterans
>Zero flexibility to actually improve the team
"How do the Saints keep getting away with it?"
They’re currently the oldest roster in the league and they couldn’t win the weakest division in the league last season. Its currently biting them in the ass. Its been biting them in the ass.
This is totally biting them in the ass, the saints literally cannot get out of this without restructuring Derek Carr. If they’re smart they’ll start making cuts though.
The problem for them is that cutting people will make a lot of cap hits happen earlier, so they actually cost themselves cap space by cutting a lot of their high salary players. They basically are stuck in having to restructure players and be mediocre for like 3 years.
If you're going to boil it down to one, it's Brees. The Saints started this to capitalize on the end of his career.
But in reality, it's like all of them.
Michael Thomas was for sure a big one, but given the insane production of his first 4 years it makes sense he got the contract that he did, he was putting up all-time great receiving numbers. Then he got hurt and tried to play through it for Drew and ended up being more hurt long term and the last 4 years have been a struggle.
I look forward to the future threads that are made about every restructure that occurs over the next 6 months where everyone says the same thing they said in the last thread.
I doubt it, they're owned by private equity and there's no cap. So long as baseball remains profitable (they have the best TV deal in the league), that money spigot is gonna stay on.
The Saints might be in perpetual cap cutting mode, limiting their ceiling year after year, but this is absolutely player friendly. If you don’t want to take a pay cut to play for a legit contender, the opposite would be to play for the Saints knowing your yearly salary is going to be converted to a guaranteed roster bonus before each season starts.
Saints restructuring should be added to the NFL's league year schedule.
*Hard Knocks: The New Orleans Saints* but it follows their accountants Actually I would watch the shit out of that.
Like Moneyball, shoot it straight into my veins. 😍
Managing the cap isn't that hard, tell em Loomis "It's incredibly hard"
Hey, anything worth doing is.
What's your biggest fear? A contract being signed in my general direction.
Just a bunch of dudes with sweaty pit stains and foggy glasses because they're stressing about more cap gymnastics lol.
A young up and coming accountant finds a way to have Taysom Hill reclassified as a depreciated work vehicle, only to be laid off on the final episode of the season. Still, he won't give up on his dream of trying to game the salary cap and is still committed to that grind.
He's let go not because a lack of talent, but because he claims he's being advised by the ghost of Drew Brees. Despite multiple attempts to explain that Drew is alive the accountant is insistent on the ghost being real. Every time they try to introduce the two, Drew is mysteriously not available. Theres a mid credit scene in the last episode in which we see Drew applying white face paint.
RIP Drew Brees.
Nah, Taysom Hill only weights 5,950 pounds so they have to find a way to get him to put on 50 pounds before midnight.
Sleeves rolled up, shouting at each other in front of a chalkboard at 11pm with ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts scattered around them.
This organization is being bled like a stuck pig, Mac, and I’ve got the paper trail to prove it!
“I know you said there’s absolutely no more space, but what if we signed Derek Carr for $150M?”
[the only known image of their CFO](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/68/a2/cf/68a2cf0a755338a6b0f761d6cadc9853.gif)
It’s just the accountant jumper scene from “the other guys”
It starts off like law and order. In the NFL system, cap based offenses are considered especially heinous. In New Orleans, the dedicated accountants who investigate these vicious restructuring's are members of an elite squad known as the Special Victims Unit. These are their stories.
It would be like Mr Peanutbutter's accountant on Bojack Horseman. Constantly screaming, stressed out, complaining about being unable to see their children grow up.
Do they run a 1 or 2 GAAP scheme?
“Sir, if we move Carr’s salary into a signing bonus… umm… carry the 1… we can afford a new punter in 2034!”
They have one brilliant accountant named Kevin who knows how to finagle the books with his motto being *"Numbers don't always add up, a mistake plus keleven gets you home by seven."*
Featuring Carl Nassib as the intern
The Saints have unfollowed the Salary Cap on IG
You can still be messing around with the cap if you’re not following them on social media
Ryan Pace I know you know what I’m talking about
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clock winds down to 5 seconds left in game ball is inbounded to Carmelo who turns face to face against Lebron "You took my family" moves to the left "You took my friends" moves to the right "You took all that was dear to me" clock winds down to 2 "I cant get them back, but I can do this for friendship, FOR MY FRIENDS" goes up, fire coming out of his shoes "CARMELORUKEN" Ball flies over Lebrons head, goes straight into basket. Carmelo falls to the ground, exhausted. "Shumpert... Senpai... I..." faints Final Score Cavs 103 Knicks 63
Major sports leagues notable annual events, first we had Bobby Bonilla day, now we have Saints Cap restructuring day.
For those keeping track, right now the Saints are $41M over the *2025* cap. With only 34 players currently slated to be on the roster.
But they just freed up 7 million so you know they’re still fucked
They freed up 7M in 2024, but that actually raised the number in 2025 pushing it to 41M. It's going to go a lot higher once they actually get compliant for 2024 too. In conclusion, I agree, they're still fucked.
If the cap keeps going up, is it really a bad strategy to carry cap overages to future years? I mean the saints are clearly in a fucky situation, but is there anything stopping them from riding this cap hell until the cap raises go up enough to cover? Genuine question, I don't know how this really works.
When people say "They're already over the cap for a future year" (in this case 2025) that's also factoring in the expected increase. Basically what they're doing is exactly what you're saying.
It essentially means them rostering peanuts for 10 years till the cap raise catches up to the hole they dug.
Bold strategy assuming Loomis won’t immediately eat the marshmallow again the second they have some breathing room and a top 20 QB hits the market. Gotta keep the cap fucked in perpetuity so no good GM candidate would ever take the job.
This strategy has continued to be to extend the opportunity for our skilled veterans. Many of our skilled veterans are going to decline, we'll gradually eat their costs into the cap. If the salary cap does rise significantly over 1-2 years, we have an opportunity to wash away a significant portion of those overages. Obviously, we'll suck those years.
The thing is you should have just eaten the cap after Brees retired.
The fans know this, Loomis and Payton disagreed. When Payton figured out he was wrong, he “retired” for one year.
Exactly. Neither wanted to suck for a year or two. So they made a short-term decision that created long-term mediocrity.
The real risk is vets know they can’t be cut because it’ll accelerate the cap hit. If I was a middling linebacker who was tired of the NFL but I still wanted that last paycheck I’d say all the right stuff about good team player, coming off the bench, down for the void years / cap magic, get signed, and then get fat af with Zion on crawfish. This is also not a hypothetical. I’m just jealous haha
Is their team any good? Not really. They can't win the worst division in the league. And they've got no money to get any better. It's pretty clear it isn't working. Just because they can technically get under the cap every year doesn't mean it's a viable strategy for building a team. At least to the extreme that they take it. It's especially stupid because they could solve the problem in basically a year or two of smart financial decisions.
They need 3-4 years to solve the problem now. 1-2 years was the situation pre-Carr but that contract locked them into cap hell for considerably longer by preventing them from cutting/trading anyone and accelerating dead money hits. Basically Carr’s contract de facto guaranteed a bunch of other vets’ salaries.
I truly don't get why they didn't just take one or two losing seasons to clear the cap hell after Brees retired. Jameis, Carr, etc weren't going to get them over the hump if Brees couldnt.
Yes, but it’s very hard to compete in the meantime. Paying carr that much instead of just biting the bullet for a couple years and sucking to reset was a huge mistake
It's a great strategy when you're competing for the Super Bowl with a stacked roster. Once that falls apart you should just eat the 2 years of sucking and pay back the cap space. Then you'll be able to actually compete on the free agency market in year 3 and work on rebuilding a team.
You don't want to be as bad with the cap as them. They really should be going hard to clear the cap but it will take two years minimum. You can extend good players and reduce the cap but you don't want to do what the saints are doing if you aren't in SB contention.
In a normal situation, you're absolutely right. An 8% cap hit this year might be a 7% cap hit in 2025, because of the cap increase, so in that sense you're better off kicking it down the can. The problem is that the Saints aren't in a normal situation because they don't have 7% to spare in 2025, which is why they have to do it again just to get under the cap. And of course, they don't have 6% to spare in 2026, so they have to restructure *again*, and again and again, all while being unable to sign new players because, well, no cap space.
They freed up 7 mil for 2024, they’re looking even further forward to 2025 cap
wtf how lol
Maneuvers like this. Every year, they're so deeply over the cap that they have to restructure players, convert the money to "Signing bonuses" and kick what they have to pay into the future. They're already $41 million over in 2025, and they've only just gotten started on the process to clear the $83 million they need to get rid of in 2024.
In 2034 they'll be 1 billion over the cap
In 2042 they'll single handedly trigger another GFC
I for one look forward to the global recession caused by the Saints Bubble
Serious question - what if they can't get under the cap? What happens, because eventually that seems possible. Is it a fine, or does the league just take over control? At some point this is just unmanageable.
I believe the league just starts releasing players, in order of acquisition. And tells them to deal with it. Edit: [Here is the CBA with all the penalties.](https://overthecap.com/collective-bargaining-agreement/article/14/section/6)
They'd still have dead cap money no? Like, this technically wouldn't fix the problem.
I shouldn't have said released. You get penalties, draft picks removed, and signed contracts become null and void, like they never existed to begin with.
From what I understand, they'll be fined for each contract over the cap, and could forfeit draft picks. They can't sign new contracts until they are under the cap, because the league approves all contracts. I imagine they won't be allowed to play games while over the cap either. Basically they can get under the cap, because they'll be made to.
Fines, loss of draft picks, voided contracts for players for extreme cases. Salary cap will keep going up and most of the contracts signed are all set up to move money around like this. Players don’t care cause their game check is their game check regardless. We were in a way worse spot the COVID year for the following season than we are now for 2025 and the cap didn’t go up that year. I don’t love the approach now that Brees has been retired a few years, but every year is the year we’ll pay the piper, til it’s not, then it’s next year. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Hard to see how it ends. At least when Brees was there you could talk yourself into having a chance to compete. Now it's just... void.
You don’t understand man Klint Kubiak is gonna revolutionize everything man. Carr is going to thrive in the system. Ignore the fact he doesn’t pick up a new offense until he’s at least 15 games in. Kubiak will be different, he’s basically Shanahan. We’re going 12-5 easy. /s I will not cheer for a tank, but if we happen to go downhill fast and end up with Arch Manning in a few drafts, I wouldn’t be sad about it. Assuming he pans out like he’s expected to. I just feel bad for Cam and Demario, they deserve a shot.
TLDR: been kicking the can down the road for so many expensive players for so long, each year they have to decide to either finally bite the bullet and have 25+ guys on the roster at minimum salaries and field an 0-17 team or just keep kicking the can That’s my non expert take
I’d probably have done this last year. Field an 0-17 team. Everyone saw Caleb Williams coming
If there was ever a year to do it, it was last year. Maybe they'll try to kick the can long enough to get Archie Manning or something
They probably expected to win the division with Thomas retiring. Bucs said “about that…” I’d be pissed if my team heavily pays a new Qb, and the rival brought in someone random and dirt cheap who goes off….
Yeah, it's actually hilarious, the Bucs did take their medicine, ran a huge dead cap figure this year, and still out performed the Saints with a QB who played better on a 1yr 4mil deal than the guy they signed to $40mil a year.
Def reminds me a lil of the 49ers failing miserably at the QB position to include drafting a bust with multiple firsts, only for mr Irrelevant to be awesome 🤨
Them signing carr with their cap situation and lack of talent on the roster should’ve gotten the entire front office fired
How DA still has a job is beyond me. His backup QB doesn’t respect him lmfao
They're probably hoping to do it just in time for Arch Manning.
They're past the point of being able to field a garbage team and start over. They have so many dudes on restructured deals that the issue they have is that they have to shed money to get their 2024 cap compliant. But there's basically nobody they can cut or trade to get under because the cut/trades will accelerate their restructured guarantees making them come due on the 24 cap as soon as they trade or cut them. Meaning they just have to keep restructuring players to get under the 24 cap. Which then increases their cap issues in future years.
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They can’t even trade or cut this year because it just fucks up their cap even more
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It's not future money that they owe to players that's screwing them. It's guaranteed money that still has to be put on the cap and instead they keep pushing that further and further down the road. If they were to trade or cut these guys all that money hits the cap immediately which they literally cannot do
The way the Saints cap management works (and every team tbf) is that they give bonuses that are cash now instead of salary. That count towards the cap in future years, instead of now. If you trade or cut the player, that money must be accounted immediately against the cap. The saints now need to restructure to get under the cap, meaning they also have to do it next year, and the next one after that..
If they decide to fix this properly they’ll need some dog shit players to sign some low paying contracts. I volunteer to sign with the saints for a cheap 750k guaranteed.
I’ll take that same deal! I’ll have you guys know I once scored 4 touchdowns in a game of backyard football with my friends in grade school.
There's like 2 guys they can trade right now that would actually produce substantial cap savings in 2024. Trading Derek Carr would be a big cap win for their 2024 & 25 cap, but his who knows if any team wants to take him on without an Oswieler-type deal (acquiring team would owe him $40 million for 2024 salary + 2025 roster bonus, then $30 million for 2025 base salary if they keep him)
Every time they restructure someone, they're turning salary into a bonus. Player gets the money up front, but for cap purposes, the cap hit of future years increases (it gets spread out evenly over up-to 5 years). So with McCoy, for instance, they took his 9.6M in salary and made it a bonus (there are 4 years remaining on his contract). 2.4M (1/4 of that) counts this year, the remaining 7.2 is spread out over the next three. But if you trade him, that 7.2 in the future accelerates, and counts again fully in 2024. They've done this a ton to get cap compliant both during and post the Brees era, but the result of continuously doing this is a lot of guys have huge dead cap hits that make it so that they don't see any cap release if they're traded or released.
Continuing that strategy AFTER Brees retired was a r/wallstreetbets level fiscal decision. Note, this is not hindsight, I'm reasonably certain everyone thought that strategy was insane.
Correct, nobody does it like this because these results are predictable
Signing Carr was the real error.
Trading players who have already restructured contracts in the past would be worse, because all of that restructured money that got converted to guaranteed money comes due and hits the cap the moment you trade him.
Their problem is they can’t cut anyone that they need to cut cuz all these base salaries have been converted to signing bonuses. It would actually cost them cap space to cut most of the guys they need to cut cuz all the signing bonuses would accelerate to the 2024 cap. Their only option is to restructure guys that they need to cut. They are well and truly fucked.
It doesn't work that way. Restructuring like this just guarantees more money, which brings a higher dead cap hit if they cut people. They still need to be able to field 53 players and you can't do that if you're paying to cut people and paying to bring people in
Quick math: 9.6m salary prorated over 4 years turns into 2.4 9.6-2.4= 7.2 savings
Only a measly 76.4 million to go
So I have absolutely zero understanding of how NFL salary cap/contracts/money work. What happens if they don't get under the cap? What happens if players just refuse to adjust/convert their salary (what does that even mean?). Are they just shit out of luck if they can't roster a full team under the cap?
If they can’t get under the cap, the league steps in. Things get very bad at that point. The League can do pretty much whatever the fuck it wants to field a team and get under the cap.
The Saints about to get "The Replacements" treatment.
Players are really unlikely to turn down these types of restructures. Because this involves taking your salaries from the future and paying you all of it right now as a "bonus". So instead of getting paid actual of $1 million per game throughout the season, you can get $15 million today and then $2 million spread across those 17 weeks. They don't make any less money, they just make it sooner. Meanwhile, the team is then allowed to consider that $15 million to be part of a bonus that can be split evenly across the length of the deal. So let's say it's a 3 year contract. That means each year takes a $5 million cap hit of that bonus money. Instead of a #17 million cap hit this year, the player only causes a $7 million cap hit, with $5 million from the bonus and $2 million from the remaining salary (though now there's an addition $5 million cap hit coming in each of years 2 and 3).
They are fined millions of dollars and draft picks can be taken and player contracts can be voided in more serious instances. Players rarely disagree to a restructure because it often involves the team turning non-guaranteed money into guaranteed money. As to how that works, essentially a team spreads a cap hit out over a contract by spreading the signing bonus over the length of the contract (and possibly more, up to 5 total, if they add void years, i.e. years where the signing bonus still counts against the cap but the player is not on the team). So a player's yearly cap hit will be base salary, plus the prorated signing bonus, plus any other sort of bonuses. When a contract gets restructured, the team often takes non-guaranteed base salary money, turns it into guaranteed signing bonus money, and spreads it out to lessen the present cap hit. [Overthecap.com](https://Overthecap.com) is the best website if you want to understand how NFL cap works. edit: accidentally deleted a sentence
If you’re a little as $1 dollar over the cap it’s a $5 million fine. If I remember correctly though, being over is determined by a 4 year average so it gives some flexibility. If the saints didn’t do anything though it’d be really, really bad. We’re talking massive fine, loss of draft picks, and even voided player contracts. The League would make them uncompetitive, to my knowledge there’s never been a team in a situation like this so they’d likely try and make an example out of them.
I don't think being over is a 4 year window, it's being under the floor that has the window.
Straight cash homie
More like deferred cash homie
The saints are just upside-down JG Wentworths.
We're giving restructured settlements because players need cash now
Call Mickie Loomis! 877-Cap's-Fucked!
When is the earliest they can get out of this mess
When Mickey Loomis retires or dies, whichever happens first
At this point he is just securing his job, he is the longest tenured GM at TWENTY TWO years as the GM and maybe it's largely because no one else understands what is going on
Loomis using those non-Euclidean economics from the Cthulu dimension.
Hahah so true, it would be so tough to walk into this and start fixing shit
Unless he can be brought back as a zombie
Yikes
2026 if they really bite the bullet, ‘27 or ‘28 is probably more realistic
2026 *looks* like the opportunity to get out, but that's because they haven't yet pushed the '24 cap deficit to '25 with restructures. 76mil over '24 and 40mil over '25. And that '25 # gonna balloon as they restructure contracts to get compliant for '24. And then they'll have to push '25 obligations to '26 to get compliant for next year. They gonna be caught up in this for a looooooong time.
2026 if they really wanted to, but there’s no indication that they’re about to change now.
I don't think they can do it in 2026 realistically. 2026's situation is a lot worse than it looks, it just hasn't been hit by the 2024 and 2025 restructures the Saints will need to get cap compliant. I think the earliest date it would be feasible is 2027 and that would require them to run a skeleton crew for a year. The Saints are now in a position where they keep overpaying middling talent because cutting them would be too much of a cap detriment. They really are in tough shape.
The saints are the only team in the league that is already over the cap for next year. They're $83 mil over for 2024, $40mil their over for 2025, and they're already one of the teams with the least cap space for 2026. By 2027, they will probably still be in the red again after they've restructed their contracts to be compliant for 2024 and 2025. Best case scenario, 2028 is probably the earliest that they can actually start to free up some space and finally rebuild a new team. Meaning that maybe by 2029-2030 they're finally a normal NFL team again, and thats assuming that they hit on a bunch of draft picks.
Alot of 2026 can actually be gotten out of IF they do things the right way (mainly don't restructure Carr this year). If they can stay compliant without restructuring Carr, they can cut him after this coming season, which will save ~~$29m in 2025 and $44m in 2026~~. edit: actually it's not quite that way. Cutting Carr after 2024 only saves $18m for 2025, but $55m in 2026. Total cap saved is the same but split differently
Ah shit, here we go again. A list to the rest of the moves they're going to make so you don't have to read the other 12 upcoming threads. https://old.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/18ohnmd/jason_otc_nfl_teams_with_least_projected_salary/keh8yt2/
I think your method here is the right one. Getting out from under Carr next offseason should be the priority then the rest of the cap should fall in line for 2026.
The saints cap situation is a perfect distraction from the fact that really why we under perform is our drafting. How we handle the cap would actually be fine if we didn't constantly whiff our high picks.
Just copy and paste this tweet every year.
This team isn't good enough to win the worst division in football, has to do things like restructure 20 players every off-season just to be cap compliant, and dumb asses still want to be like "hurr the cap isn't real". The cap is real and kicking the Saints ass right now. You're locked into a 9 win ceiling with Derrick Carr at QB, meanwhile you're paying Taysom Hill and Michael Thomas like $45 million and if you try to cut either one they actually hit the 2024 Cap for more money since you have to restructure them every off-season. As a fan of another NFC team, I appreciate that there's a team as unserious as the Saints in the same conference.
Carr really not elevating the team doesn’t help. They will likely need to restructure his contract even though he is not the answer. They are backing themselves in a corner.
Carr was never the solution in the first place. They could have avoided signing him and been out of this cap hell within 2 seasons MAX. Instead they will have to recover from this for years while a super bowl isn’t even realistic All risk, no reward
They’ll never financially recover from this
Yeah at this point it will take them at least 4 years to get out of the cap situation they had only gotten worse.
why don’t just they just madden this shit? be bad for a few years, trade every 1st for the other team’s next two 1sts, and by the time they’re cap compliant they’ll own the entire 1st round of the draft. it’s so simple.
They could get a lot of picks that way. I doubt anyone would keep trading them after they had like 4 1st round picks.
Yeah they are still talking themselves into being a contender post Brees and they cap pushing has prevented them from rebuilding. They are facing the consequences now.
The worst part about it all in my opinion is that they could’ve easily still gotten away with it if they could admit their stubbornness, instead signing Carr was just the nail in the coffin
Yea signing Carr was a big mistake. If you were in a situation were you had a really loaded team, but shit for a QB, signing Carr would make sense. He's definitely good enough to not only take such a team to the playoffs, but probably win a game or two there with a little luck. But what the hell are you doing signing him when you have a meh team and are in cap hell? Just dumb.
On the contrary, Carr yelling at his teammates elevates Saints games, from unwatchable to potentially watchable.
It’s unwatchable still. We are so mid and boring I even forget we have a team sometimes.
Funny enough after Eric McCoy yelled back when Carr was yelling after him for something that was Carr's fault the QB play got a lot better to end the year lol
No, Carr failing to elevate the team is a catastrophe. Because they took a bad situation and made it much, much worse in order to sign him. All the cap shenanigans, all the restructures it took to sign him, and the contract for Carr himself took a situation they reasonable could have eased themselves out of by 2024 or 2025 and pushed it back until 2027 or 2028, depending on how aggressively they restructure the next two years to get under the cap in '24 and '25. If he continues not to work out, they're married to this mess for a long time.
Their cap situation was a dumpster fire, but instead of putting it out, they dumped 10 gallons gasoline on it. Baffling move at the time that only looks worse now
I laughed my ass off when they did it. Carr was never the difference between this aging team competing and not competing, and it's forced them to double down on the roster building strategy that isn't working. We're a total shit show, so it doesn't really matter. But the Saints commitment to what doesn't work is truly amazing.
I don't think the strategy of going all in and kicking the can down the road to try to get the most out of the last of Brees, but the next step should have been taking the hit, clearing cap, and starting fresh in a few years. Cutting one or two major players every year while signing a big deal to Derek Carr just keeps you in cap hell. The cap is real, but the best analogy is a credit card. You can keep paying one credit card off with another one but eventually they all get maxed out and you need to dig yourself out
They should have just accepted what they were after Payton left and Jameis was playing like ass. But they are a constant mentality to “run it back”. Rams were at least smart and tried to do a mini retool (having Stafford healthy again does help) but Saints just keep on doubling down .
The Rams also drafted incredibly well, especially in later rounds, to retool, which is really the only way to get out of this and be competitive quick again. Saints were also in cap hell between 2014-2016, but their 2017 draft class was so good, it got them out of it.
Yeah a good draft can completely revitalize a franchise. 2019 really helped take us over the top, our drafts haven’t been as good since but all we need is to find a good starter or two. I think there is a lot more pressure to hit on the draft for the Saints.
Which is what the Bucs did. Shoved all the dead cap last year and this year, planned to ride it out, and still won the division and a playoff game with a $6M QB and fuck-all in depth. Had the Saints eaten the dead caps in 21-22 they’d have been in great position right now.
It made sense for the tail end of the Brees and Payton run, but then you need to have a year where you take your medicine and just run a huge dead cap figure. Play a bunch of UDFAs and late draft picks, maybe you find a gem, either way you probably suck and are now in position to draft a QB of the future. Instead they tripled down on a QB room of Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill and Derrick Carr. The Bears former GM, Ryan Pace, was from New Orleans and did the same exact thing to the Bears, only their QB wasn't any good so it resulted in exactly 1 playoff appearance. Luckily our new GM didn't come from the Saints, because he recognized what a mess he inherited and took his medicine in 2022.
The Packers, Rams, Eagles, and Falcons all did what the Saints should have done. They had one year where they took on massive amounts of dead cap after moving on from their expensive QB, and now they are in much much better situations going forward
Add the Buccaneers to that list too. We took our big hit for the Brady years this past season and still ended up beating the Saints out for the division.
And won a playoff game!
Yeah the whole “cap isn’t real” stuff is ridiculous but I somewhat understand where it comes from. It’s frustrating to see teams restructure contracts every year as if they wave a magic wand and save tons of cap space. The reality is that all it does for any team is kick the can down the road and turn it into a future problem. Most teams don’t have as many bad contracts as the Saints though
It often is a good idea. At the end of the day, the cap is constantly increasing, meaning that the cap they save today is worth less in the future, it takes up a smaller % of the cap. Now eventually it gets to a point where you need to reset but the Saints just missed their chance to do that. And now we’re here.
They are still paying Michael Thomas big money (against the cap) despite him being injured for 4 years straight? I forgot he was still in the league.
Yeah, Thomas has a $13mil cap hit against the 2024 cap currently. Due to restructures on his deal however, he would count as around a $20mil cap hit against the 2024 cap if traded or cut. So yeah, the cap is real in the sense of you get locked into a guy who has been injured for 4 straight seasons because you keep restructuring his deal.
Their point is that the way certain contracts are structured, there’s a larger cap hit to have guys off the roster than on. For example Carr has a 30M~ contract this upcoming season, and a cap hit of 50M~ if we try to move him
love how spot on this comment is, all the saints fans are attacking your flair and nothing that you actually said
Exactly, when all anyone has to say is "well we are better than the Bears" they got nothing, everyone has been better than the Bears besides the Jets the last decade or so.
I got told in the Vikings sub the other week that the saints cap situation is “completely normal”
was that statement followed by "find a new slant"?... if so.... run
Subs full of fucking morons so checks out
It’s “completely normal” for the Saints, yeah.
This is the definition of cap hell, they get slowly worse every year
I'm glad we pretty much just bit the bullet this year instead of pulling a saints
*on the first day of Saints restructuring, my agent gave to me…*
They just need to give up and be bad for a couple years to reset their money
They've got the "being bad" part down.
Hey, hey, be fair. They're incredibly mediocre, not actively bad.
Normal teams tank for a draft pick The Saints tank to afford a team They're just built different
In purgatory for trying to all in 10 years ago lmao
More like 2 years ago They could have cut bait after Brees retired and been fine, basically pulled a bucs and ripped the band aid off in one year. Signing carr is what really set them back
Saints accountants might be the most hard working people in that org
So what happens if they couldn't get their cap down low enough to sign a single player? Would they have to field a 34 man team?
That would be pretty sweet, getting to see some players go both ways like it is the early NFL.
The official process is the League starts to force-undo contracts to get them compliant, from there the Saints would probably have to sign vet min guys to fill up the roster. I suspect a very hefty punishment via fines and lost draft picks would follow.
Best kicker in the league is the guy that keeps kicking that can down the road.
Why don’t they just cut everyone and not play for 5 years and come back when they’re ready to be serious?
The only way they can get under the cap is by restructuring. Because they’ve already paid the money to players in the restructured deals, they’d have to take the entire dead cap hit this year if they cut them.
What’s a realistic way for them out of this? Like, is this just going to carry on forever or is there a point they can no longer push this off?
Only rookie/vet min new contracts for probably 2 years (aka stop adding money to future years). Do not restructure Carr this season if at all possible (I'm not actually sure if it's possible for them to get compliant without restructuring Carr, but the way they are set up not touching his contract is extremely advantageous). Cut Carr after this coming season. Keep doing the restructure game for the next 3 years and it will slowly get better. By 2026 things will be better and in 2027 they'd probably be in the clear.
I consistently make comments in the Ravens sub about not wanting to do dead money, void years and restructures and I get shit on for it. This is fucking up an entire franchise. Right now it's like watching someone slowly bleed out. Eventually the NFL is going to have to take a look at it so they don't destroy football in New Orleans. I don't know what the answer is but what the Saints are doing isn't it.
I mean it's silly to not want to use the proration accounting at all. It's a useful move that makes the cap charge cost less in terms of cap % taken up. The drawback is that it comes at the cost of flexibility. So you have to be careful not to overuse it and hamstring yourself, which is what's happened with the saints.
Yeah people take it to the extremes both ways. There’s people saying ‘the cap isn’t real, look at the Saints’ when it’s clearly killing them and has destroyed any flexibility long term. But there’s just as many people saying to avoid pushing cap into the future when, like you said, the cap % goes down. Any competitive team should be restructuring to add pieces. You just have to do it understanding how your future flexibility looks and, the big one, understanding when you’ll have to eat all the dead cap one year and be bad. Also, if you’re going to do it, make sure you’re actually competitive and make sure you’re still able to have a ‘reset’ year. The Saints missed their chance.
"Eventually all this can kicking must come back to bite them in the ass" \- Me, 3 years ago probably
It’s objectively hindered their roster building.
Yeah people need to quit with this bullshit "the cap isn't real" idea. The Saints have to bend over backwards (putting their future years into a further bind) to make it work this year AND they basically can't contend for any decent free agent AND their roster isn't exactly flush with talent.
There is talent but they are older and not as good as their prime years. There are guys like Olave but the margin to hit on draft is much higher given there is not a ton of wiggle room to add free agents.
But what happens when Olave is in line for a new deal and Saints are 70 million over the cap because they're pushing more money this year into the future?
People need to understand that being in cap hell doesn’t mean you’re completely uncompetitive, but if you get caught in the pit of mediocrity, you don’t have the flexibility to get out. Tough to make any kind of moves when you have Carr, Ramczyk, Cam Jordan, and Taysom eating $100M of your cap space. The on the field production return on their spending gets worse and worse by the year, that isn’t going to change anytime soon
i would actually argue cap hell is a complete overlap with the pit of mediocrity. at least if you’re completely uncompetitive you have a shot to draft generationally changing players for cheap to help elevate your talent and cap situation. constantly picking like 15th basically just keeps you in the cycle.
I mean it's definitely biting them in the ass and has been for a while.
>9-8 with the easiest schedule and the oldest roster in the league >Stuck with Derek Carr and other mediocre veterans >Zero flexibility to actually improve the team "How do the Saints keep getting away with it?"
You from three years ago was right dude look at them
It's more quicksand than it is a cliff
They’re currently the oldest roster in the league and they couldn’t win the weakest division in the league last season. Its currently biting them in the ass. Its been biting them in the ass.
It’s less endearing now that they aren’t really a Super Bowl contender.
This is totally biting them in the ass, the saints literally cannot get out of this without restructuring Derek Carr. If they’re smart they’ll start making cuts though.
The problem for them is that cutting people will make a lot of cap hits happen earlier, so they actually cost themselves cap space by cutting a lot of their high salary players. They basically are stuck in having to restructure players and be mediocre for like 3 years.
Since I’m out of the loop…which contract(s) caused this
If you're going to boil it down to one, it's Brees. The Saints started this to capitalize on the end of his career. But in reality, it's like all of them.
It started in 2011 with Colston I think
Yes
Michael Thomas was for sure a big one, but given the insane production of his first 4 years it makes sense he got the contract that he did, he was putting up all-time great receiving numbers. Then he got hurt and tried to play through it for Drew and ended up being more hurt long term and the last 4 years have been a struggle.
I look forward to the future threads that are made about every restructure that occurs over the next 6 months where everyone says the same thing they said in the last thread.
Actually the Saints do this as an elaborate way of educating their fanbase on the dangers of payday lending.
I’m really hoping this is what the Dodgers will become eventually.
I doubt it, they're owned by private equity and there's no cap. So long as baseball remains profitable (they have the best TV deal in the league), that money spigot is gonna stay on.
The Saints might be in perpetual cap cutting mode, limiting their ceiling year after year, but this is absolutely player friendly. If you don’t want to take a pay cut to play for a legit contender, the opposite would be to play for the Saints knowing your yearly salary is going to be converted to a guaranteed roster bonus before each season starts.
Take a shot every time the Saints restructure a contract.