Why did I have to read this post? I am so upset with myself for opening this thread up and seeing this post. No, I am not upset with you for reporting what you heard. I am upset with Mueller for saying it. What the hell does he mean that our chunk of cap would go to Briggs and we don't want that. What is, then, do we want? Oh yeah, over-the-hill players like Aaron Glenn who we entertained yesterday. I mean, that's the dumbest statement ever. The Saints have $35 million. Sure, we must re-sign Colston, Evans and Smith. But we have plenty of money to have signed at least one and still have re-signed those guys. I mean, we pretend as if the cap does not go up every year. It used to be that you had to be careful signing guys or you could end up in cap hell. That reality has changed and the only team that perennially faces cap hell is the Redskins because of how they structured deals in the past with all those signing bonuses.
Let's look at it this way. Let's say the Saints would have offered Briggs a 7 year deal worth $49 million with $17.5 million guaranteed. The guaranteed money would prorate over the life of the deal at $2.5 million per year. Now, let's say this yearly base salaries were as follow:
Year 1: 3, 000, 000 So in year 1, he only counts $5.5 million against our cap and we have $35 million available
Year 2: 2, 250, 000
Year 3: 2, 750, 000
Year 4: 3, 500, 000
Year 5: 4, 500, 000
Year 6: 5, 500, 000
Year 7: 27, 500, 000
The Saints could have easily set up a deal like this where his cap figures would be $5.5, $4. 75, $5.25, $6.0, $7.0, and $8.0 million in the first six years of the deal. So the deal would either be a five or six year deal. After 5 years, Briggs is 32. So we could make a decision on him for the final two years. If we would have cut him after 5 seasons, he would immediately count $5 million against the cap for that sixth season. But we would have cap savings that year of $3.0 million since his base salary would not be included once he is cut; only the prorated bonus would become accelerated against the cap. Given that the cap is steadily increasing, I am led to believe that in six years, $8 million against the cap won't be significant. So, the notion that he would have commanded a huge chunk of our cap is RIDICULOUS. If further buttresses my belief that the Saints dropped the ball on this one.
Ugh!