You can "easily" cut Carr this year despite the issues discussed. (Not suggesting you should, but that you could.)
The Saints are $52M+ over the cap right now.
- Post 6/1 designation on cutting Carr saves $30M in cap space.
- Ideally Cam retires and you can rework his deal the way we did with Ram, but let's say he doesn't. Post 6/1 designation on Cam saves $11M.
- The next obvious move (to me) is Taysom. His future is unclear at his age (going on 36) and health, but he also has no guaranteed money left. Give him some protection (incentive) with some guarantees in the future through next season and bring him down to about the vet minimum this year. You can save about $7M.
- Cut C. Wilson. $2.4M savings.
Those 4 moves alone get you to cap compliance. And in my opinion does as little damage as possible to the future cap. (Make no mistake, there's some damage that gets built in, but at least the extension is minimum to a guy like Taysom who, health-pending, has probably the most value of those guys if you don't value Carr.)
You'll need to clear room for some draft picks, etc. But there's still plenty of options depending on your preferences. (Not advocating, just giving options.)
- Cut Jamaal Williams. $1.6M savings.
- Cut K. Saunders. $2.6M savings.
- Cut F. Moreau. $2.8M savings.
- Cut N. Shepherd. $1.2M savings.
- Cut J.T. Gray. $2.1M savings.
- Cut D. Jackson. $1.1M savings.
- Cut J. Ridgeway. $1.1M savings.
- Cut J. Haener. $0.9M savings.
Total of those would be about $13.5M. Obviously there are other guys to cut, but at some point you're just replacing those salaries with the same minimum salaries.
You can start to see older contracts come off the books then in the following years with no future penalty, assuming you want them to. Cam, Carr, Mathieu, D. Davis. It means going young and lean for 1-2 years, but it can be done if you want. I'd even argue the easiest path to compliance has to be to cut Carr with the 6/1 designation. Otherwise you're extending him.