re: Saints Salary Cap Discussion

Since I just touched on Jenkins I'll just say that he is good as a nickel corner and $1.6 ain't bad for someone you'd consider a "starting corner"(being that nickel corners are now often used as much or more than a 3rd LB).

I also agree that if they plan on keeping him in the deep safety role then they need to move on.

Well that's why I'm asking if the reported $1.6 mil club option is legit because I think you HAVE to keep him at that price.

Now if he is a free agent, I think you have to let him walk unless he comes back for about $2 mil or less.

dunno the red numbers on sportrac, might be voided...

Larry Holder wrote on it this past spring-
He'll make $2.4 million in base salary in 2013 with a salary cap figure of around $4 million. Jenkins had the sixth year of his deal voided shortly after the 2010 season.

Jenkins is the player I'm prepared most for them to pay more and longer for than I and most here prolly would like. The leadership and versatility angles are maybe bigger than we judge.

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I like the new deal idea for Harper

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I DON'T like that being the best option tho!
That's what I don't want to see in a couple of years with a Jenkins deal.

Greer may not make it back from that injury, smith is gone, Moore is gone, let drew restructure and try to give Bunkley away on a trade. I think that would do it.

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and try to give Bunkley away on a trade

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Trading him would have the same exact cap implications as cutting him(which is why it was stupid of everyone to keep saying trade Ingram last year because it would have cost us cap room).

So unless we get something killer in the deal it would save us more money restructuring him, plus we keep a really good interior run stuffer.

For instance, if we take $3 mil of his base and turn it into bonus money, we spread that over the remaining 3 years and save $2 mil($1 mil of the bonus going toward this year's cap).

That's more than the $1.275 we'd get by cutting or trading him by $725,000, which you can than put elsewhere(another vet minimum player or two, or more money toward x player's deal).

So we can:

A- Keep him and restructure(thus keeping one player and helping to get another one or two)

B- Trade him(losing him and likely getting a draft pick that may or may not work out, while only saving about half as much)

or

C- Cut him(losing him and saving only about half as much).

This is why players and teams are so willing to restructure. Players get bonus money up front and teams get cap relief.

The down side is that they become harder and harder to cut in later years, which usually have a higher cap hit than prior years.

In Bunkley's case we gain the $2 mil this year but lose it again next year if we cut or trade him, or we lose $1 mil next year if we keep him and $1 mil the year after no matter if we keep, cut, or trade him.

This is also the reason you rarely see trades in the NFL and why teams also ask a high price for guys. They are sometimes taking a big hit just to get rid of them. So the only time trades really happen are when teams are already trying to get rid of them and want something in return.

Edit:
And this is also why you don't really restructure guys with only 1 or 2 years left unless they are taking a pay cut. You need more years to be able to push the money forward.

frick me for posting 3 times in a row, but I didn't want this to get lost in that long arse last post.

In the following, when I use restructure it's strictly in the bonus money up front to move money around sense. If these guys take pay cuts or get extensions the numbers change.

These are the guys that would save us more by restructuring rather than cutting:

Brees(lose cap if cut)
Evans($2.5 mil saved if cut)
Grubbs($100,000 saved if cut)
Colston(lose cap if cut)
Bunkley($1.275 mil saved if cut)
Lewis(lose cap if cut)
Morstead($135,000 saved if cut)

These are guys that would save us more by cutting than restructuring:

$2+ mil base salary
Smith(1 year left)
Greer(2 years left)
Sproles(1 year left)
Moore(2 years left)
Thomas(1 year left)
Harper(2 years left)

Between $1-$2 mil base salary
Jordan(1 year left with team option the year after)
Butler(1 year left)
Galette(2 years left)
Ingram(1 year left)
Robinson(1 year left)
Watson(2 years left)

Guys that have practically untouchable contracts are Lofton, Hawthorne, and Vaccaro. At best we could save maybe a couple hundred thousand with each but unless we are that strapped it's not worth bothering with.

What does this all mean?

The first set of guys are more than likely to see restructures. It wouldn't make sense to cut any of them unless we don't want to waste any more time with them.

The second set of guys could see restructures, extensions, pay cuts, or just get cut. It's likely we see something done with all of these players.

The third set of guys, looking who is there, are unlikely to have anything done to them. Little(only a few hundred thousands at best) is saved in a restructure, extension, or pay cut. Robinson is the only one I see being in any danger of getting cut.

Everyone else(save maybe Drescher) is making minimum or very close to it. Only reason to cut any of them is to make room on the roster for other players.

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Will Smith - IR
Roman Harper - #1/2 SS
Jabari Greer - #2 CB
Lance Moore - #3 WR
Darren Sproles - #2 RB
Pierre Thomas - #1 RB
Patrick Robinson - #3 CB

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Smith is gone gone. He's been replaced and saves by far the most amount of money(he alone puts us right around the cap).

The others save about a combined $15.5 mil. We don't need that much room unless we are going to replace these guys in free agency. Definitely would need another starting corner and I don't think we can lose both Sproles and PT.

A lot of that depends on Graham's tag number though. If it's TE money we'll be okay but if it's WR money then we practically have to start cutting some of these guys.

It would be best if we signed him long term now so he has a low number this year, but the battle lines are already being drawn and this is going to drag out fricking up our cap hold for him throughout free agency.

Now if it's ruled that he's a TE than just restructuring some guys would give us enough money to tag him.

Moving on from Graham, I think it might be wise to move on from Greer. Looking at Lewis' deal his first year was only $2.25 mil on the cap, less than the amount we'd save by cutting Greer.

He's getting older, more expensive, and coming off a major injury. As much as I love Greer, it's time to get younger and cheaper(at least for the first couple of years).

Robinson is curious. He's shown flashes(better than White on the deep ball at least), but hasn't really proven to be a consistent outside corner. If we are strapped he may get cut, but he's cheap enough that he's a good value to take a flyer on.

For Moore, we do have in house replacements and we may need the money. If he takes a pay cut he stays, or maybe even a restructure. If not he may be a surprise cut depending on the Graham situation.

Sproles and Thomas are almost in an identical boat. Both on their last year and both save about the same amount of money. Both are about equally important to our offense(I think PT is more important, though not by a lot).

I could see us parting with one, or one or both taking a pay cut or getting an extension. I just don't think we have true in house replacements for them, and unless we dump both I don't see us getting a replacement in free agency, but then that's 2 for 1.

That leaves us with Harper. We wouldn't get the same value with a free agent for what he saves, but we do have an in house replacement. The 3 safety thing was overblown because our CB depth sucked and we really liked Vaccaro and Bush.

Had Robinson(and later Greer because White was getting more nickel snaps) stayed healthy it would have likely been about even on 3 safeties vs. 3 corners. I think much like Moore, it will come down to how much we need the money.

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With the emergence of Ingram and Robinson, PT is now less important than Sproles, who still commands extra attention as a pass catcher.

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I have to strongly disagree with this because you are forgetting a very important running back skill: pass blocking.

PT was more important than ever this year with how bad our line was. As the year wore on his usage went up to help compensate for the poor pass blocking.

While I agree that Robinson and Ingram can take some carries from him and Sproles is a better "receiver" running back, he is still the most versatile of the bunch and that's very important for keeping a defense off balance.

Think back to when all we did was run when Ingram was in. He did piss poor because the D keyed in on that. They're trying to mix it up with him more but he still is in on mostly run downs.

And when Sproles is in you can bet most of the time he is running a pattern. He rarely stays in to pass block(and usually gets destroyed when he does because he's just a little guy) and he saw only 53 carries to Thomas' 147(almost being tripled up).

Meanwhile Thomas tied a career high in carries and caught the most balls he has in his career, even more than Sproles did this year(while seeing fewer targets at that).

Too many people undersell PT. He is a true do it all back and we'd be losing a lot if we lost him.

Edit:
Another note, Thomas is also a year and a half younger than Sproles. Sproles will be 31 before the season starts, and Thomas doesn't turn 30 until the end of the year.

IMO, we get a tad bit too fancy with having PT/sproles.

We have two backs who have run hard through the playoffs against good run defense teams. fresh legs or not, they produced.

Ingram: 28 carries 146 yards (5.2ypc) 1 TD, 3 receptions 17 yards 1 Fumble

Robinson: 21 carries 102 yards (4.9ypc) 1TD, 1 reception 13 yards

Maybe we should stop getting fancy with it and start going with a traditional run game if the line is healthy/playing as well as they did in the post season.

Combine their carries, extrapolate it through 16 games you get:

392 carries 1984 yards 16 TDs
32 receptions 240 yards

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We have two backs who have run hard through the playoffs against good run defense teams. fresh legs or not, they produced.

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Yeah, but where missing PT showed was the amount of pressure put on Drew Brees because none of our other backs can pass block well.

Until we get(or develop) one that can, we need PT around.

Also recall the drops on the screens that the other backs had. PT makes those catches 99/100.

If we had PT we would have had a much better chance in Seattle.

Yes we finally have two young backs that can run, but now they have to learn to do everything else well.