This was a game of chicken and the Saints blinked first.
Carr's leverage was the simple fact that cutting him forces the Saints to restructure the entire rest of the team to get cap complainant and likely gives the Saints zero cap space for FA moves and would force them to field one of the worst NFL rosters of all time.
The Saint's leverage was the very real fact that on the open market Carr is not likely getting $40m a year. Not nearly as many QB opening as there are FA QBs and Carr if cut could have found himself taking an even larger pay cut.
I was pretty sure that Carr was not taking a pay cut, he is the type of guy that is always going to bet on himself. In the end he get's his $40m and the Saints are forced to kick the can again.
Playing around with the OTC calculator with a base restructure means Carr's 2026 cap hit is $69m with a dead money hit of $28 and cap saving of $32m if cut. No way the Saints are paying Carr $69M next year and if they could not find away to work out a new contract now it's likely he is gone next year. The Saints decided it was better to keep him another year and take a smaller cap hit in 2026 when they will have a little more cap space to take on the dead money.