Saints could get to $14.61 million under the cap without restructuring Derek Carr, after Saints salary cap potentially increases by $5M

livefromDC said
THIS. What the Saints will likely do is what the Saints have always done. They aren't going to do what Washington tried to do in the early 2010s but they aren't going to tank or sit out free agency and just rely on the draft. This means signing mostly mid-tier FAs to fill needs in free agencies and spending big on occasion to sign a player the coach wants despite the appearance that they have no money under the salary cap. If I was forced to predict 2 things the Saints will do, it would be this:

1. We're going to see Kellen Moore and his staff get rid of players that we didn't see moving in favor of players what we didn't predict the Saints would be interested in. While we are still stuck on the current picture of the Saints, the new staff will have no such loyalty and it will be evident throughout the entire first off season up until final cut down. We have NO idea what this staff will value, but Loomis will help them bring their vision to life.

2. Try to win games.

I think cutting or trading Carr fits into the above. In fact, if Moore wants to move on from Carr, then it fits into the above better than keeping him.

But, I will say that it's been 3 years since we signed a lot of mid-tier free agents when we signed Mathieu, Jarvis Landry, Sunders, Marcus Maye, and Nathan Shepherd. Since then we've only really signed Carr and a mid-tier deal for Chase Young. And the Young deal was only a one year deal. The rest of the free agents we signed wre low priced guys. There has been clear evidence of belt tightening from Loomis.