In the interest of trying to start being fiscally responsible and understanding that next year should be a complete rebuilding year regardless, this is what the Saints should do in order to get cap compliant in 2025. They are currently $63.7 million over the projected cap, and already have over $48 million in dead money on the books for 2025 (most of which is from trading Lattimore).
Cuts (and cap savings from each):
1. R. Ramczyk (post June 1) - $18 M
2. C. Jordan (cut or retire) (hate to do it, but doesn't make sense to retain him in a rebuilding year at his current age, salary and level of production) (post June 1) - $11 M
3. C. Wilson - $2.4 M
4. J. Williams - $1.6 M
5. J. Ridgeway - $1.1 M
6. D. Jackson - $1.1 M
Total Savings from cuts: $35.2 M
Other potential cuts (would prefer not to make these cuts, but they may be luxuries we cannot afford in a rebuilding year where we are trying to get the books straightened up):
1. R. Shaheed - $3.7 M
2. J.T. Gray - $2.1 M
Additional potential savings from cuts: $5.8 M
Re-structures (only way to get cap compliant is to push some $$ to future years unfortunately, just want to limit this as much as possible; good news is that the Saints currently have $52 M in projected cap space for 2026, not even accounting for savings from the $50M base salary for Carr that there is no way in hell the Saints will actually end up paying):
1. Derek Carr (unworkable $51.4 M cap figure for 2025, so a significant portion of his $30M base salary will be converted to signing bonus): ~$20M savings?
2. Taysom Hill ($10 M base salary currently): ~$7M savings?
Other restructure options: E. McCoy ($9.6 M base salary); C. Ruiz ($9.1 M base salary); C. Granderson ($7.7 M base salary); D. Davis ($6.5 M base salary); T. Mathieu ($6.25M base salary); P. Werner ($4.25 M base salary)
Despite obvious needs at multiple positions, especially in the trenches, the Saints should only make low-cost, potential high upside acquisitions in free agency (like Will Harris, Willie Gay, Jr., and Lucas Patrick from last off-season). Long story short - next year the Saints need to bite the bullet and get the younger guys some run to see who has a future on this team.