Over The Cap guy talks Saints on MMQB

fair analysis IMO...

The Saints are a fascinating team to watch right now, and I think it has caught many people who follow the league by surprise. These are problems that when you look closely, you can see shaping up two or three years before they become very noticeable. For the Saints, it began with the contract of Drew Brees, which was heavily backloaded and simply deferred problems until the 2014 season. You can deal with one contract like that, but in an attempt to continue to chase the Super Bowl, they made a number of short-sighted contract decisions with veteran players to allow them to keep adding players to the team while just pushing cap charges into the future. When they signed Jimmy Graham and Jairus Byrd last season, that was the final straw. It was a one-year window before the bubble would burst.

Last season the Saints began the year somewhere in the ballpark of $10 million over the cap, before they began deferring more cap charges to the future. That led to this past offseason, with the Saints somewhere around $25 million over the salary cap. They probably would have begun 2016 $35 million over the cap if they remained status quo. Even releasing the players with the worst contracts would have provided little relief. They were just a sinking ship taking on more water. The team really had no choice. The cap was going to ruin the franchise at some point, and they are at least able to turn some bad contracts into draft assets. Players like Thomas Morstead or Rafael Bush might be in danger of release at some point. I could see the team exploring a trade for Kenny Vaccaro if they can receive reasonable value for him this summer.

Moving forward, I would still be watching two big-name players closely in New Orleans. The immediate one is guard Jahri Evans, who has an $11 million cap hit. The second name is Drew Brees, not so much this year but in 2016. Brees will enter the final year of his contract in 2016 with a $27.6 million cap number. Brees will be 37. If the two sides cannot agree on a new deal by next year, I would anticipate that the Saints will be very open to trading Brees, who would likely still hold great value even in his late-30s. That would completely close the chapter on this era of Saints football, but it’s a move they should consider if it gets them the assets needed to turn over the organization. They won’t receive anything if they let him walk away.

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2015 might be the final big push with Breesus at the helm? Maybe. Tough to envision. Question: Saints win the Super Bowl. Trade Brees for maximum return or go for two?