dead money kills us again

The cap went from $182 million last year to $208 million this year to a projected $225 million next year.

Players salaries haven’t jumped that much lol.

And even if they do, then it still means the dead $ were pushing into the future is a smaller percentage of both the cap AND current player salaries.
Player salary is jumping as much as the cap. Every year the cap is bigger for every team it's a lot of new available money for teams to overpay players and then the saints needs to do some magic just to be able to field a team.