Contract Restructuring - Future

I would be interested in seeing some more data about the average NFL team salary cap figures year to year.

My guess is that on average, you probably have a consistently large % of the salary cap that is comprised of base salary for players currently on the roster.

You probably have a much lower % of the cap devoted to signing bonuses for these same players that have been prorated across the life of their contracts (Drew's massive $7.4M annual hit due to a $39M signing bonus spread out over 5 years is actually a bit of an oddity.)

.... And lastly you probably have an even SMALLER % of the cap that gets attributed to "dead" money. This would be for situations in which the player gets released before the contract actually expires, but has already received a signing bonus that has been spread out over the years that they WOULD have been under contract for.

As I have always understood it, the idea is essentially that you aren't going to give a lot of "guaranteed" money (usually in the form of big signing bonuses) to players unless you are confident that they will be on the roster for years to come. Otherwise, you risk having to cut a guy that will still count against your cap for a much longer time than he plays with the team.

This is where Loomis no doubt has to relegate the task of determining who is worth the guaranteed money to Payton and the coaches... He can move the money around all day long, but at the end of the day he has to make sure he's not wasting guaranteed money on the wrong players (this is just common sense, after all.)

But if you take a look at who just got restructures, I didn't see a whole lot of players that I weren't confident would be with the team in another 3-4 years or so. Colston, Evans, Grubbs, Lofton, Hawthorne, etc... They're all guys who seem to be in the team's plans going forward.

In my opinion, the reason we have not seen restructures for players like Jon Vilma, Will Smith, or Roman Harper is because of the fact that the only 2 ways to lower the cap hits for players in the final years of their contracts are either to RELEASE the guy outright, or to EXTEND their contracts and redistribute the money across the life of the new contract via a signing bonus that will lower the cap in the short term.

The Saints are currently trying to determine whether or not it is more important to cut ties with these players (and their hefty contracts) right NOW or try to stick with them a little bit longer, and it's a very important decision. HOWEVER, these guys are actually perfect examples of why the system isn't broken.

With NFL players, there is usually a gradual and predictable drop-off in production that correlates with age. This means that by the time a pass-rusher gets to be 29-30 years old, or a running back gets to be 25-26, or a quarterback gets to be 39-40 years old, etc... you can expect their production to decline. Red flags start popping up for GM's, and very rarely do they resort to restructuring contracts for players in these situations. Instead, the players get released outright or are not retained when they become Free Agents.

Being good at estimating the risk associated with the players you sign is just the nature of the market. The guys who are most likely to experience a drop in production are not going to be the ones who just received the huge signing bonuses at the beginning of their contracts (hopefully!) You're only going to get the big money upfront if you are safely assumed to be sticking with the team for a while.

So if you're asking the question whether or not Loomis is making smart decisions with the future of the Saints' salary cap in coming years, I think it all boils down to whether or not you trust the team's ability to identify long-term vs short-term players. I personally think he's doing a great job. If he lets Will Smith, Jon Vilma, and Roman Harper walk (provided that not having to pay their 2013 base salaries frees up a considerable amount of space) while having recently restructured Evans, Grubbs, Lofton, Colston, Hawthorne, etc.... Then I would say he's done absolutely ALL the right things considering the circumstances.