Saints restructure Ramczyk to vet minimum per Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap

St. Geezy said
I think I am less of a “defender” of it in a vacuum and more of a guy that sees it as merely a different, more eye-catching version of the same problems everyone faces.

The problem with our system is that if you are up against the cap and go to bat and miss on a player, you have to live with a player you don’t want for an extra year or two. You have “borrowed from the future,” to help your present, and eventually that time and space has to be accounted for, whether it’s dead money or holding onto a player you would have never gotten in the first place for an extra year.

The problem with a “healthy cap” team that is up against the cap is they never sign that player in the first place. Or if they do have the space to sign them and they miss, they have a huge cap hit but aren’t willing to make moves to mitigate it because they have to keep their cap “healthy.”

I see your side’s argument for sure, don’t get me wrong, but I think ultimately there are consequences anytime you sign players to significant deals that you end up regretting, then compound it by not drafting well, staying healthy, and having competent coaching.

I am not trying to sell this as some huge advantage but more so as something that offers us a little more flexibility to make moves we deem necessary within the confines of the five year outlook prism rather than on being anal about keeping the books clean.

It’s easy for us to point to the Carr contract as something to hate, but the bottom line is the accounting system is what allowed us to sign a guy to a contract like that in the first place. It’s too bad it didn’t work out the way we hoped though, so now we pay the piper by (likely) keeping him around a year longer with an inflated number.

We agree more than you think, but I am more so in the “Blame the football people, not the accounting people that were told by the football people what they needed done” mindset.

I do see your pivot flexibility point 100%, but the pivoting will be pointless if you’re still making the same bad football judgment decisions.

I have to blame the accounting people. I had no problem with Carr's contract as it was written when he signed it. It was 4 years $150mil with $60 mil fully guaranteed at signing. But they knew they were going to have to restructure and guarantee him more money the following year. The accountants added the guaranteed $ in void years, not the football people. If we couldn't afford him without doing that, we shouldn't have done it and that falls at the feet of the GM.

And to be clear, I'm not calling for the cap to be completely "healthy" as you say. I just don't want to be sitting at 32nd every year with more than double the amount to shed than the 31st team. If we were cruising around the bottom 10 all the time, fine. But we are 32nd by a large margin every single year.

And I hear you on the football judgement thing. But DA was stuck with Paytons players and the next coach will be stuck with DA's players. That's not the way to run a team.