re: Nick Underhill explains how we can clear 80 Million cap space with no casualties

Just watched the video & these are all the transactions that he mentioned

Base Salaries converted to Singing Bonus

-Lattimore - 9.1 mil - saves 7.3 mil

-Ramczyk - 10.5 mil - saves 8.4 mil

-Mike Thomas - 15.35 mil - saves 10.2 mil

-Cam Jordan - 13.6 mil - saves 9.1 mil

-Demario Davis - 7.5 mil - saves 5 mil

-Onyemata - 7.5 mil - saves 3.8 mil

-Andrus Peat - 10.85 mil - saves 7.2 mil

-Bradley Roby - 9.5 mil - saves 7.1 mil

Roster Bonus converted to Singing Bonus

-Lattimore - 15 mil - saves 12 mil

-Ramczyk - 8.5 mil - saves 6.8 mil

-Kamara - 6 mil - saves 4.5 mil

-Taysom Hill - 9 mil - saves 7.2 mil

Three more cap #'s that might also need to be lowered

-Davenport - Playing on his 5th year extension. Has a base salary of 9.553 mil

-Malcolm Jenkins - Has 2 years left on his contract & he's already 34. I think the smart thing is to assume that 2022 will be his last year of legit play, & probably going to be cut in 2023.

Converting his 6.75 mil base salary into a signing bonus would save us about 3 mil, but it would also raise the dead money for 2023. That would make cutting him in 2023 harder to do. Hopefully the FO makes the right decision.

-Lutz - Converting his 3.4 mil base salary into a signing bonus would save us around 1.5 mil, I think

3 possible cuts to save some cap space

-Bradley Roby - Has a cap # of 10.081 mil, with a dead money hit of $0. Cutting him saves 10.081 mil

-Mark Ingram - Has a cap # of 2.211 mil, with a dead money hit of $0. Cutting him saves 2.211 mil. Wouldn't do it unless he loses it next year

-Kpassagnon - Has a cap # of 3.1 mil, with a dead money hit of 400 k. Cutting him saves 2.7 mil. I wouldn't do this though

I wanted him so bad when he was drafted. But we held with two first round picks and wound up with Peat and stephone anthony. Is he even in the league anymore?

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stephone anthony. Is he even in the league anymore?

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Nope. The front office even passed on Eric Kendricks when Kendrick's film from UCLA was much better than Anthony's. Anthony was a Joe Vitt pick. He fell in love with Anthony's athleticism during a private workout, over Kendrick's intelligence & play making ability that showed up on tape.

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so Jeff Ireland only gets success credit, not failure credit?

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I couldn't find the article but it was an interview that Joe Vitt did with Mike Detillier right after the draft where he told Payton to draft Stephone Anthony based off a private workout Anthony had with the Saints.

Secondly, Ireland was only brought in as a consultant for scouting in January of 2015 prior to that draft. It wasn’t until AFTER the 2015 draft that Ireland cleaned house in the scouting department & the Saints officially named Ireland as Assistant General Manager.

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On Tuesday morning, there was a report that the Saints hired Jeff Ireland to fill a college scouting role in their personnel department.

Ireland quickly denied he’d been hired, saying that there were only talks between him and the team. A short time later, though, Saints director of college scouting Rick Reiprish announced that he’d been fired by General Manager Mickey Loomis on Tuesday.

It wasn’t hard to read between the lines and the Saints took away the need to do so on Wednesday when Loomis announced that Ireland is in fact the new head of the team’s college scouting efforts. Loomis called the move a result of finding areas where the team fell short during an evaluation of their 7-9 season.

“I felt like we needed to add some experience from outside the building,” Loomis said, via the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Ireland was the Dolphins General Manager from 2008-2013 and spent some time as a draft consultant with the Seahawks last year.

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LINK

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When the Saints hired former Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland, it was right after they had fired college scouting director Rick Reiprish, so it seemed logical that was the one he was taking.

But Ireland’s title with the Saints is a little different.

According to Alex Marvez of FOX Sports, Ireland’s role is actually assistant General Manager, under G.M. Mickey Loomis.

While it might be a slight difference, there’s a distinction there.

Ireland’s coming into a staff at a time when a large portion of the college scouting hay was already in the barn, though that wouldn’t disqualify him from joining in the effort leading up to the NFL Draft.

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Former Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland is being hired to do college scouting for the Saints, per source.". He was hired to be the Saints' assistant general manager & college scouting director. Ireland was allowed to build his own scouting department in 2016.

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LINK



Vitt was infatuated with Anthony though.

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Can you tell us about your contact with the Saints pre-draft?

I got to meet with those guys at the Combine and we had an excellent meeting. I met with Coach Payton, Coach Rob Ryan and Coach Vitt, the linebackers coach. He's going to be an exciting guy to play for. Meeting with those guys through the whole process, they came down to my Pro Day and I got a chance to meet them again. There was just something about those guys, we clicked.

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LINK

Vitt loved Anthony so much that he brought Anthony along to the Jets with him.

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the Saints probably get Schreff instead of Andrus Peat @ pick #13.

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Damn BRPD incompetence screwing over the Saints

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pretty sure ireland had the college scouting job from get go.

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With Ireland getting such a late jump into it that year with the Saints, there was no way he could have handled that first draft entirely himself.

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He gets credit for peat's draft even on saints personnel page.

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Did you ever stop to even think that Peat was one of the players that Ireland personally scouted himself which is why he is created for the pick?

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i don't care about the vitt love, ireland signed off on it.

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Vitt was also the Assistant Head Coach back then with a much longer tenure & relationship with Payton. That power in itself gave Vitt authority to override Ireland who wasn't yet completely established with the Saints in his position. Ireland had only a few months with the organization at that point when Vitt had several years under his belt. Payton allowed Vitt to pick the LB in that draft that Vitt wanted. It's as simple as that.

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he was on staff at seattle year prior. he didn't take a year off from the NFL dude.

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Different team with different needs means a focus on different draft personnel.

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dude, he flopped on the anthony pick, get over it.

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Yes Vitt did flop on the pick with Payton cosigning the selection. That's why both Vitt & Anthony were gone just a few years later.

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jesus christ, you have completely gone off the ledge with your assumptions and your creative thinking.

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I know what I read immediately following the draft with Vitt's interview with Mike Detillier. Vitt wanted Anthony bad & Payton allowed the pick so that Vitt could have the LB he wanted from that draft. You are one the making assumptions despite the evidence put right in front of your face.

Yes he did. Vitt was a joke & you know it. You also seem to forget just how much more involved Vitt was with that 2015 draft than previous drafts. It's not a coincidence that Vitt was more involved with the scouting process that year & the team picked two LBs in the first two rounds which were guys Vitt personally wanted.

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While working with a group of draft-hopeful linebackers in Dallas this offseason, former New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Shanle was struck by the passion and work ethic of one in particular. 

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“This kid, right away …,” Shanle said. “He wanted to meet with me, go over chalkboard sessions, watch film, go over my plays that we ran [with the Saints]. I was completely blown away with his passion and how eager he was to learn.

“Because there were some other kids I worked with who were gonna be late draft picks or undrafted, and they had it all figured out. They didn’t need any help. This kid, there was never a moment he didn’t want to meet and talk football.”

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Shanle also wound up doing some scouting for his former team in the process.

Shanle said after about a month of working with Kikaha, he reached out to Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and linebackers coach Joe Vitt.

Not that Kikaha wasn’t on their radar already since he was a first-team All-American who filled one of their biggest needs. But Shanle’s input couldn’t have hurt.

“I said, ‘If you guys are looking for a Sam linebacker, you need to take a look at this guy,’” Shanle said. “A lot of times teams like what they see on tape, but the X factor is, ‘What is this guy like? Is he gonna fit into our locker room?’ So I feel like having me tell them what he’s like and working with him for two months, I hope it carried a lot of weight and they trusted me.”

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Shanle also inadvertently gave Kikaha a head start on the other newcomers in Saints camp.

“I put ‘em through the Joe Vitt drills,” Shanle said with a laugh. “I always told those guys, ‘If any of you guys get drafted by the Saints, you’re gonna have the linebacker drills down.’”

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LINK

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Exhaustive pre-draft work:

 Vitt stressed the importance of the Saints’ 2015 draft class, citing a number of reasons: their nine picks; the fact they are in a “semi-transition” after releasing so many longtime veteran leaders the past two years; and the fact that “we don’t ever want to pick [as high as] 13th again.”

“Our coaching staff, our scouts, we’ve seen more players in person on the road, interviewed more players, watched more film, did more cross-checks on players this year than any time I’ve been here, and maybe any time in 37 years in the National Football League,” Vitt said. “We have left no stone uncovered this year. We know the importance of this draft. ...

“These players are gonna be part of the foundation.”

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Vitt on pass-rushers:

The Saints have been hard to please when it comes to drafting edge rushers and linebackers throughout the Sean Payton era. They had never drafted any in Rounds 1 or 2 in Vitt’s tenure until this year, when they took inside linebacker Stephone Anthony in Round 1 and outside linebacker Hau'oli Kikaha in Round 2
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Kikaha led the nation with 19 sacks last season at Washington but slipped in the draft in part because of his measurables -- he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.9 seconds. Vitt gave some insight into what he likes in a pass-rusher in his pre-draft interviews.

“Sacks do not equate to victories, pressures do,” Vitt said. “We’re looking for a guy that’s obviously got athleticism with the physical attributes, but tenacity is what gets sacks in the National Football League. There’s so many three- and five-step drops by a quarterback, if you can get a quarterback to reset and stay after your opponent, you get the sacks on the reset. So tenacity is critical.”

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Kikaha actually played fairly well, but injuries continue to pop up.

Anthony was so fricking bad

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The crazy thing is Eric Kendricks was passed over twice for both the Anthony & Kikaha picks. The Vikings took Kendricks (pick 45/2nd round) with the very next pick after Kikaha (pick 44/2nd round).