re: Balance The Saints Cap

Restructure:
Drew Brees - one of the big areas the Saints can save money dropping his base salary from 9+ million to 955,000; causes some issues in 2014 and 2015 though

Cut:
Will Smith - obvious and essential for the Saints to get under the cap
Jabari Greer - older cornerback coming off a severe injury
Darren Sproles - while in RL the Saints really want him back, seems a little slower and will be in his 9th year in the league in 2014
Austin Johnson - think the Saints will churn the bottom of the roster
Charles Dawkins - churn candidate like Austin Johnson

June 1st cut:
Brodrick Bunkley - another older player; for his amount of snaps, the saints can probably fine a younger (more importanly cheaper NT or let Hicks spent more snaps there)
Lance Moore - salary for his production is outrageous
David Hawthorne - done to save problem for later years; also heard that the Saints want to give Reddick more playing time in 2014

Trade:
Nick Toon - could use a change of scenery and the Saints could use another draft pick

Franchise:
jimmy Graham - Obvious

Resign/Tender:
Tom Johnson - young and a chance to improve
Jed Collins - good player who knows the system
Joe Morgan should get his shot to return from injury
Rafael Bush - deserves a shot to make the team
Bryce Harris - Saints need tackles

This leaves the Saints with the following cap room:
2014 - $11,481,288
2015 - $16,230,074 (should have a bump up (~7 mil) due to new CBS Thursday and Saturday night games)
2016 - $41,212,368

Cut
Will Smith
Austin Johnson
Charles Hawkins
Terrance Frederick
Derek Dimke
Derrius Brooks
Adrian Davis
Senio Kelemete
Andy Tanner
Ty Neshke
Chris Givens
Travarius Cadet

All these players can be replaced by UDFA

This gives us plus 3.7 in plus cap not including
Restructures/Designated Cuts
Greer
Harper
Moore
Thomas
Sproles

I would leave these for 2015 Restructures as money for Galette and Jordan
Brees
Grubbs
Evans
Bunkley
Colston

Speaking of minimum salaries, I noticed a bug where the veteran minimum salary benefit rule isn't being applied in the program.

This doesn't affect the current roster outside of Drescher, who should count $160,000 less. But if you want to sign Meachem, Haralson, McCown, etc. as a vet minimum player, they are counting more than they should.

Make a June 1 cut on Greer and save 4.5 mil.

Did all that you did and I am 7,904,857 under the cap.

Hate to see him go out like he did. But an aging corner on a surgically repaired wheel is not a good option to have in a passing league.

quote:

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Make a June 1 cut on Greer and save 4.5 mil.

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Yeah I'd like to keep Greer unless we have a FA corner in mind, but he'd have to take a big pay cut for that to happen.

As for the other stuff, that was just a quick job to see what was possible. Plenty of stuff that I would do different, like using a couple of June 1st cuts possibly, a couple of pay cuts/cheap extensions, trying not to redo Brees this year, etc.

Edit:
Just as a test run, I managed to resign all off our free agents except for Vilma(old), Meachem(old + Morgan), Brown(bad), and DLP(probably going to get overpaid).

I left Jimmy on the tag and did not touch Brees. Strief is getting $3.6 mil this year(3 year/12.75 mil) and Jenkins $3 mil(5 year/$20 mil).

Morgan and Bush got 2nd round tenders, while all the other free agents took minimum.

I restructured Evans, Grubbs, and Colston. I only cut 2 guys, Smith and Bunkley(June 1st cut).

Harper, Greer, Moore, Sproles(new 3 year deal), and Thomas(new 3 year deal) took pay cuts. To make it simple I dropped them to minimum but gave them what I thought were appropriate bonuses.

Just to give you an idea these are their cap numbers: Harper($4.5 mil), Greer($3.7 mil), Moore($3 mil), Sproles($2.4 mil), and Thomas($2 mil). So it's not like I stiffed them to make the numbers work.

After all of this we are a little over a mil under the cap. 2 cuts, 3 restructures, 5 pay cuts and resigned pretty much everyone.

Downside is we are $11.5 mil over next year, but that's why I saved Brees. Restructuring him alone would put us about $6 mil under the cap, which is low for what it will actually be with the tv deal.

So we'd really be about $10 mil+ under. And the only big UFAs we have would be Graham, Bush, Morgan, Robinson, and Butler(Jordan and Ingram have the team 5th year option). So we are actually in much better shape than it may seem.

We all know Smith is gone, so in this scenario we really only lost Bunkley and kept everyone else, free agents included.

Nice job Zoom. Bone too.

I can see Greer cut on June 1st even if he is re-signed later I don't see how they would pay him still rehabing.
Cutting Bunk is a toss-up to me.
Moore will get cut if he doesn't agree to a restructure.

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Graham, 6 years $58mil w/ $22mil guaranteed

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If the Saints guarantee more of the contract than usual would JC play for less than 10M a year? He wants to stay with Brees and that could be for 3 more years. Would he except a 3-4 year deal that gives him time, career wise, to move on if Brees is gone and is loaded with guaranteed money?
Maybe so!

Streif offer a 2 year deal 6M with 4.5m guaranteed to induce him to stay.

Of the cuts I would keep Toon(one more shot in camp) and Johnson.

Good leg work guys.

The Toone I was referring to in my post was Tim Toone haha. As for Tom Johnson, I figured I would just not tender him as a RFA and let him test the waters. I think he'll be 29 when the season starts, and we may be looking to bring in some more young guys/open up more time for Glenn Foster and Tyrunn Walker.

Cut smith and harper. bam.

I would assume like Ivory, Strief, and countless other saints who stood out to the staff that is worth anything the team would not simply cut them for the sake of saving NFL nickels and pennies.

But those numbers change if Bunkley's a June 1st cut.

I agree I would never just outright cut him this year without that designation, but the money that can be saved this year and next with it is enough to consider it.

If he's a June 1st cut he saves us $4.5 mil this year with only $1.6 mil in dead money. That's a 3 to 1 ratio in favor of cutting him.

And if you project out to next year if he's a June 1st cut this year it's still about a 1 to 1 cap savings to dead money ratio in 2015.

So the question becomes do you keep a rotational player at that price tag, or do you think Jenkins and Hicks can take on his role for a lot less?