Dead Money On The Saints 2024 Salary Cap As Of Now

But here's what dead salary cap doesn't show. For each of those players, they accounted for a smaller percentage of the salary cap when they were on the team then they would have otherwise. Meaning, the Saints decreased the percentage of the present year's salary cap that each player accounted for while they were still with the team. This had 2 distinct benefits:
1. The ability to retain more valuable players because each respective player isn't taking up too much cap space. Call it the Joe Flacco Effect.
2. The "value" of the cap hit actually decreases with time as long as the salary cap increases. Because the salary cap is mucher higher in 2024 than in 2021 or 2022, the dead money percentage for peat is significantly less than the real cap hit % would have been then. The same dollar amounts but percentage wise a better long term decision since NFL team salary caps are not static numbers.

In short, dead money is not a bad problem to have when you have good players. I'd much rather that then the teams with cap space and bad players. Even if the Saints give out a contract that they shouldn't every few years, it's a better environment than a team that's hoarding cap space and not improving their roster. That's not something to aspire to.