Saints Cap Moves: $33,780,933 cap space ….. 8 restructures, 3 extensions, 3 pay cut, 1 release [All current cap moves are in OP below line]

St. Geezy said

Yeah I was mostly going off of ML’s word that we’d be aggressive. Seems like we tried to but didn’t want to overspend on our targets.

Wouldn’t make sense to create it just to roll it over.

There are still plenty of free agents left, and also keep an eye on the trade market. There could be a high salaried guy or two out there that we are eyeing to try to absorb.

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It seems like the 49ers run their books that way, creating significantly more space than needed each year.

In 2023, they spent $75m in restructuring bonuses (plus $9m in option bonuses) and rolled $38m in cap forward.

In 2024, they spent $67m in restructuring bonuses (plus $21m in option bonuses) and rolled $50m in cap forward.

In both years, they could have still had plenty of room to operate without any restructuring bonuses.

Also noteworthy that whether they restructure a player is a hint on whether that player will be re-signed the following year. There were no restructures for these players with significant base salaries in 2024:

Charvarius Ward (Colts)
Talanoa Hufanga (Broncos)
Dre Greenlaw (Broncos)
Aaron Banks (Packers)

They seem to try to capture more of the cap hit in the current year if they don't expect the player to be with them the following year.