Let's talk salary cap
Sportrac do a great interactive where you can see what each cut costs the team now and in the future and is pretty easy to use to show the various alternatives we face.
https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/new-orleans-saints/cap/_/year/2024
It certainly gives you an idea of the big challenges we face in the off-season. It woulds be pretty easy to do the usual kick the can economics but this won't solve the long-term issue of not being able to bring in starters rather than decent players who might flourish in the scheme...
If you want to do radical surgery and try and get it all fixed asap then the results are pretty scary. I did a test run and to get under the cap without extensions etc I had to cut/retire: Cam, Ram, Turner, Young, J. Johnson, Wilson, Williams, Saunders and Taysom.
That still sent enough dead money into the future that we were £26 million over for 2026 (something that would be easily sorted by extensions etc). I didn't cut Carr because I figured the cost-benefits of cutting him before 2026 weren't favourable but obviously many will disagree.
The biggest issue is if we do radical surgery like that is we go into the draft in 2025 with massive needs: Starters at DE, OG/OT (already an issue), TE, NT/DT, WR (Olave may retire too). Then we need high-quality depth at: DE, DT, FS, SS, WR, TE, OL