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How to fix the Saints - good article (long read)
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:49 am
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:49 am
From Ben Solak on ESPN+. He's a mega-nerd but I typically like his analysis. In his weekly article he goes deep on what a hole the Saints have dug for themselves. Since it's subscription, I'll quote the Saints portion of the article (assuming that's OK). It's a long read.
quote:
The New Orleans Saints are $68.4 million over the 2025 salary cap ceiling, per Roster Management Systems. That's a truly bananas number.
No NFL team has managed its salary cap space as aggressively as the Saints have done under general manager Mickey Loomis, and it's not remotely close. In the waning years of Drew Brees' career, through the twilight of the Sean Payton era and into the Dennis Allen addendum that ended Monday morning with Allen's firing, Loomis has not just spent aggressively -- he has consistently borrowed money from future cap years to make his current team cap compliant. Hence the $68.4 million he owes to the 2025 cap before the league year begins this coming March.
It's not just that the $68.4 million figure is towering; it's that the Saints have painted themselves into a corner. Because Loomis has used contract restructures at more than double the rate of the next-most-aggressive teams, the Saints don't even have any players to cut for immediate cap relief. Their roster is full of players with tiny non-guaranteed base salaries compared to inflated guaranteed signing bonuses that have been taken from future cap seasons. Loomis did all this to build a contender, and the Saints haven't seen a playoff game since 2020. Now, the bill comes due.
The Saints can and will get cap compliant in 2025, but it's going to be profoundly unpleasant. They should consider trading just about every player who can provide them relief. They will cut some beloved players (if they don't retire first). And it's going to require even more restructures in a grotesque ouroboros of future borrowing that can truly never be escaped.
Here's what the Saints need to consider and prioritize to become cap compliant in 2025 and beyond:
This post was edited on 11/5/24 at 9:56 am
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Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:50 am to dcw7g
quote:
1. Hope someone retires
The biggest net positive the Saints can get on their 2025 salary cap comes from player retirement, which is an appropriately bleak sentence for the state of the Saints' cap. Right tackle Ryan Ramczyk, an excellent player who has been battling cartilage loss in his knee for several seasons now, hits the cap for about $29 million in 2025 and another $26.2 million in 2026. But he has missed the entire 2024 season with that knee injury and may retire as a result of it.
The Saints would likely try to process a Ramczyk retirement post-June 1 in 2025. This would allow them to save $18 million in 2025 and another $15.2 million in 2026. The Saints could also go the Brees route by converting the 2024 base salary into a signing bonus before Ramczyk officially retires, which would create an even greater 2025 cap relief (another $13.44 million in 2025, which would instead be paid up in 2026).
It is worth pointing out that should Ramcyzk's release/retirement be processed as a post-June 1 transaction, the Saints would have to carry his cap figure into the 2025 league year when it begins in March. If they're up against the cap ceiling (which, fellas, they are), they may not have the wiggle room to wait until June 1 to get Ramcyzk's deal off their books. If that isn't the sign of unhealthy cap management, I don't know what is.
If Ramcyzk wants to continue playing football, I don't see a world in which the Saints can keep him. Restructuring him would be wildly risky given his injury history and their current existing dead cap hit. I have to imagine they'd cut him, either with a pre- or post-June 1 designation.
Another potential retiree is defensive end Cameron Jordan, who hits the cap for $20 million next year in his age-36 season. Jordan clearly has lost a step and fallen down the Saints' pass rush rotation accordingly. Because the Saints have pushed so much of Jordan's money into future years, it would actually cost them more cap space in 2025 to cut him (or retire him) before June 1, so I'd expect Jordan will be one of their two post-June 1 designations, no matter what.
They absolutely cannot restructure him again; his contract is up in 2026, and I can't see him playing that much longer. This is just one pill they'll need to swallow ASAP. A post-June 1 cut or retirement would save the Saints $12.5 million in cap space, and they could get even more if they did a Brees-like restructure on his deal pre-retirement.
Last but not least: linebacker Demario Davis. At 35 years old, Davis is admirably holding his own, but it's reasonable to expect that retirement may come soon for the 13-year veteran. Davis represents a $4 million savings in 2025 as a post-June 1 cut, which isn't worth the squeeze. And it would cost more in dead cap if Davis is off the team in 2025 ($17.2 million) than it would if he stays on ($12.5 million). The Saints need to hope Davis wants to play for at least one more season so they only process his dead-cap money in 2026 ($8.7 million).
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:52 am to dcw7g
quote:
2. Figure out who is tradable in the next few hours
The fact that the Saints fired Allen right before the trade deadline indicates to me that they want to offload some deals before the bell rings at 4 p.m. ET. (Sure, it could just be the super-embarrassing loss to the Panthers, though. That would also make sense.)
When you trade a player's contract, only their base salaries and future roster bonuses become the financial responsibilities of the acquiring team. The original team is still responsible for the signing bonuses and restructures that have been prorated over many years of cap space. That's ... well, it's terrible news for the Saints. Because it means that trading many players would provide little to no immediate cap relief.
Take cornerback Marshon Lattimore, who is rumored to be in trade talks this week. By the numbers I see publicly available, trading Lattimore would save the Saints less than $400,000 against their 2025 cap. They'd save $600,000 this season and roll that space over into 2025, in which they'd actually take a bigger dead-cap hit ($31.7 million) with Lattimore off their roster than they would if they kept him on the roster ($31.4 million). The relief would only really start to come in 2026 and beyond, as all those void years and prorated bonuses accelerate onto the 2025 cap.
I think Lattimore could still be traded, as he'd return draft capital. But for the purposes of saving the Saints' cap as fast as possible, I wouldn't want to trade him on Tuesday. The best trade candidates for immediate cap relief are offensive tackle Trevor Penning, receiver Chris Olave, edge rusher Chase Young and quarterback Derek Carr.
Both Penning and Olave would save the Saints $3.4 million apiece if traded Tuesday -- not very exciting. I'd do it with Penning, who has struggled for the Saints and is unlikely to develop, in a heartbeat. Olave is a much trickier case. I'd have no interest in trading a great young wide receiver, but Olave seems very frustrated with the Saints, and the potential for a couple of Day 2 selections is very enticing. Perhaps future plans at quarterback would affect how aggressively I shopped Olave, as he might not want to return to the Saints in 2027 if Carr is still the quarterback at that time. (Spoiler: I pitched an Olave trade later in this column.)
To that point: Consider a "Bar Rescue" universe in which I am given the ability to make drastic, severe changes to the way the Saints are run. My first item of business would be trading Carr by lunchtime Tuesday.
Carr is not going to quarterback the new-era Saints to glorious heights. He is 33 years old and will be 36 when New Orleans reasonably expects to be competitive again. And the Saints don't even have him under contract beyond his age-35 season. Carr was the apple of Allen's eye, and Allen isn't the coach anymore. Nothing about Carr's play in recent seasons warrants a $30 million base salary in 2025, nor a $40 million base salary in 2026. He just isn't that caliber of player.
Because Carr is an average starter who comes with a hefty contract and a lot of wear on his tires, it might seem hard to find a buyer. You could go the route of the Brock Osweiler deal, where the Texans sent Osweiler and a second-round pick to the Browns in order to get his salary off their books. The Browns sent only a fourth-rounder back. The Texans elected to do that deal instead of restructuring Osweiler and borrowing from future seasons. Could the Saints do the same?
It would be very challenging, as trading Carr provides only $11.9 million in cap relief for 2025, far less space than restructuring him would create (all of his void years would jump onto the 2025 cap in the event of a trade). You'd need to know for sure how much money you were getting out of the Ramczyk and Jordan deals to start. Even then, I'm not entirely sure it's possible to get under the cap ceiling in 2025. Remember, we still don't know exactly what the cap ceiling will be next season.
But if it's doable, I think the Saints can and should do it. Getting Carr off the books for 2026 and beyond is an enormous step toward a rapid return to competitiveness. A lame duck at quarterback hampers the entire offensive roster, and eventually Carr would become a dead-cap anchor on the 2027 or 2028 or 2029 Saints. I'm confident that at least one desperate suitor would strike an Osweiler-ian deal for Carr's services over the next couple of seasons. The Titans are quarterback-less, as are the Panthers and Raiders. If you gave me Jim Irsay's personal cell number and an uninterrupted half hour, I really think I could convince the Colts to do it, too.
And finally, Chase Young. The Saints should absolutely trade him by the deadline. Young gets a $470,000 check for every game he's active this season -- it's not a game check from base salary but rather a roster bonus being paid out in the form of fully guaranteed game checks. This money is classified as "other amounts treated as signing bonus," because it is fully guaranteed. But as far as I can tell, because it's a per-active game roster bonus, the team that acquires Young would take on those checks for the remaining eight weeks of the season. (Believe it or not, I do touch grass sometimes, I promise.)
The brass tacks: The Saints can save $4.5 million in 2024 cap space, then roll that over into 2025, by trading Young on Tuesday. He's on a one-year deal right now with four void years attached, so the Saints either trade him now or extend him this offseason to keep that voided money buried in future years.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:52 am to dcw7g
quote:
3. Restructure the big base salaries
The unfortunate reality of can-kicking is that once you start, it's hard to stop doing it. As the dead cap accumulates from all the void years and salary restructures done in the past, you have less cap space to work with now and need to restructure more base salary to survive.
Let's go back to Lattimore, who would only save around $600,000 if traded. Because Lattimore is due a base salary of $16 million next season, his contract is an excellent candidate for a restructure. By dropping that base salary number down to the minimum of $1.255 million and converting the outstanding $14.745 million into a signing bonus, the Saints can prorate that over five seasons and suddenly save $11.796 million in 2025. Sure, you're going to have to pay that money again somewhere down the road -- but the Saints need immediate relief, and Lattimore can far more easily provide that while on the team than off it. (New Orleans could also cut him and designate him as a post-June 1 release, of course, but it only gets two of those, and we've already designated them to Ramczyk and Jordan here.)
Lattimore is a better candidate for restructuring than many other Saints because he still has some good ball in him, and his 2025 base salary is big enough to provide meaningful relief. The same goes for center Erik McCoy, due $9.6 million in base salary next year in his age-28 season. You can get $6.7 million in a McCoy restructure and another $5.2 million in a Carl Granderson restructure. The Saints probably don't want to be spending 2029 money on 29-year-old Granderson in 2025, but because the roster is so old and bloated, they have to restructure where they can.
The most likely Saint to see his contract restructured is Carr, though. In the event that he is not traded tomorrow, it's nearly mathematically impossible for the Saints to get cap-compliant in 2025 without restructuring his $30 million base salary.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:53 am to dcw7g
quote:
4. What to do with Taysom Hill?
Hill has an $18 million cap hit next season. He'll be 35 years old. Is he a 35-year-old tight end? I wouldn't pay that guy. Is he a 35-year-old running back? I wouldn't pay that guy, either.
The Saints wouldn't even save much money from trading him -- less than $1 million in 2025 cap space. And he's not going to return a good draft pick, so it won't be worth it anyway. (Watch Broncos coach Sean Payton prove me wrong at 2:57 p.m.)
Hill has $10 million in base salary. Do you restructure him? I mean, you have to, right? It's the only option. But then you're restructuring a 34-year-old who doesn't have a position! Why does he even have a $10 million base salary to begin with? Is anyone reading this? Am I OK?
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:53 am to dcw7g
quote:
5. Let the roster bleed out.
If you don't stop restructuring, you can't stop restructuring. When you already have so many void years on so many deals, what's adding a few more on running back Jamaal Williams' contract? Why can't safety J.T. Gray get a few? (That has actually happened, by the way. Those players have void years on their deals.)
It's time for the Saints to take their medicine. When a team kicks the can this far down the road, it eventually runs out of road -- and that's precisely where the Saints are: at the end of the road. It may feel smart to extend safety Tyrann Mathieu into 2029 to prevent his void years from accelerating in a vacuum, but it isn't. It's a slippery slope on a downward spiral into another abyss of future cap borrowing. Restructures can and often are a good tool in healthy roster management. But so is accumulating big draft classes to reset your roster -- just ask the Cardinals. So is a short-term prioritization of development over competitiveness, just to foster long-term competitiveness down the road -- just ask the Lions.
Be bad for a couple of seasons. (The Saints were going to be pretty bad anyway.) Let the dead-cap hits actually hit you. And come out the other side ready to spend and compete.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:56 am to dcw7g
quote:
Be bad for a couple of seasons. (The Saints were going to be pretty bad anyway.) Let the dead-cap hits actually hit you. And come out the other side ready to spend and compete.
I mean this is essentially the path. Solak didn’t break any news there.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:56 am to dcw7g
The bottom line, and the whole board knows this, is that Loomis has got to be gone for us to go anywhere.
If he is still the GM when hiring a new coach not an ounce of progress has been made.
We need to really hope Gayle wakes up one more time and cans his arse or moves him into a new role, away from any kind of team management.
He is an infection that has to go.
He was successful, we won a lot of games, but his time has come and gone.
If he is still the GM when hiring a new coach not an ounce of progress has been made.
We need to really hope Gayle wakes up one more time and cans his arse or moves him into a new role, away from any kind of team management.
He is an infection that has to go.
He was successful, we won a lot of games, but his time has come and gone.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 9:58 am to dcw7g
No one is trading for Carr, Benjamin.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:00 am to dcw7g
quote:
4. What to do with Taysom Hill?
Hill has an $18 million cap hit next season. He'll be 35 years old. Is he a 35-year-old tight end? I wouldn't pay that guy. Is he a 35-year-old running back? I wouldn't pay that guy, either.
That Hill contract was unreal
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:01 am to dcw7g
quote:
Because Loomis has used contract restructures at more than double the rate of the next-most-aggressive teams, the Saints don't even have any players to cut for immediate cap relief. Their roster is full of players with tiny non-guaranteed base salaries compared to inflated guaranteed signing bonuses that have been taken from future cap seasons. Loomis did all this to build a contender, and the Saints haven't seen a playoff game since 2020. Now, the bill comes due.
How this fricker can even remotely keep his job is laughable. I can only hope Gayle and him have reached some agreement where Loomis is going to help clean up some of his mess so the new GM won't be so screwed when he starts the job.
quote:
They will cut some beloved players (if they don't retire first).
There's no one on this team I consider beloved anymore. Get rid of them all and start over.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:05 am to dcw7g
That is a truly depressing read
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:07 am to CBandits82
Loomis' success was solely that he hired Payton when no one else was going to give him a HC job, and no one else was going to seriously consider the NO job (remember, this was the offseason following Katrina). The teams' record before, and after Payton, during Loomis' tenure is bad. Unlikely he'll get canned, but hopefully Ms. Benson will reassign him into another position in one of her orgs.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:20 am to dcw7g
quote:
The brass tacks: The Saints can save $4.5 million in 2024 cap space, then roll that over into 2025, by trading Young on Tuesday. He's on a one-year deal right now with four void years attached, so the Saints either trade him now or extend him this offseason to keep that voided money buried in future years.
This why I was saying he needed to the absolute first player traded. He has value and we actually get real cap savings.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:23 am to dcw7g
Just to recap, Loomis has made an absolute mess of our situation, and had no business burying us even deeper with Carr.
Shoukd have took the csp hits and let Jordan go and sign min value qbs that wanted to start after that one year of Jameis.
It was the only path to start getting out of cap hell. But here we are.
Shoukd have took the csp hits and let Jordan go and sign min value qbs that wanted to start after that one year of Jameis.
It was the only path to start getting out of cap hell. But here we are.
This post was edited on 11/5/24 at 10:35 am
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:23 am to Townedrunkard
Chase Young has no value
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:43 am to dcw7g
Trade Carr and Young if you can find buyers, keep Penning and Lattimore, retire Ram and Cam, restructure his contract and start Taysom at QB while developing Rattler, let Davis walk in free agency if you can’t trade him. Olave has no trade value right now because he’s hurt, so you can’t trade him until next season even if you wanted to.
This post was edited on 11/5/24 at 10:53 am
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:49 am to dcw7g
Some Saints fans have been talking about this for years on here.
Normies:
Normies:
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:52 am to Fun Bunch
quote:
That is a truly depressing read
You and others have been telling us the cap is a myth for years and Loomis is a cap genius.
Astute posters have been predicting a lost decade of Saints football since 2020.
The read is spot on, the question is will Gayle allow the arsonist to become the fire fighter.
Posted on 11/5/24 at 10:56 am to dcw7g
Loomis is the real head of the snake to the Saints problems.
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