{2023 Thread Bumped} Underhill Giving No Quarter to Nick Wright (1 Viewer)

[bigdub81]

One thing that comes to mind is you would think that a team that operates this way would value draft picks as a ready source of cheap labor to fill in gaps in the roster. But far from being a team that trades down to accumulate picks, we’ve consistently sacrificed picks to trade up. Fewer picks and high cap leverage seems a curious combination…

What if this is Loomis reversing that strategy? Like he’s he depending on future comp picks plus our own to retool little by little while vets we’ve vested in rotate out. It could also be a nice way of saying that since you didn’t perform up to the contract you’d like, we’re not going to bother offering you one. I think one plus on our side is that players see how we treat our top performers and as good as current and past players that were able to secure high end contracts speak about us, it’s almost an incentive for rookies or 1-2 year players to up their game.

 

[Covington Saint]

What are you referring to?

Ryan Nielsen who coached Onyemata must have convinced the Falcons brass that Onyemata is in fact worth what they are choosing to pay him. It was the other poster's opinion that we did not pay David these monies cause no way he is worth it.

 

[Rouxble]

We no doubt started utilizing it more, but Loomis has been restructuring and making the most of cap space for at least the last 10 years. Cap management has been a topic of discussion for as long as he's been here. It certainly didn't just start in 2020. The strategy wasn't all that different. We're just pushing more than we have in the past to get the players we want now. The difference is in measure, but it's absolutely not new.

Over his career, Loomis is ranked as one of the most conservative GM’s in terms of the portion of guaranteed money paid out in signing bonuses. And the restructuring bonuses are way out of line with past cap management.

Contract Proration Ratios | Over the Cap

Contract Proration Ratios | Over the Cap

overthecap.com

 

[JackDiesel]

There's a good reason for that increased aggressiveness though. Covid. The only way the team was going to stay competitive was to do what Loomis has done. Whether it works post-Brees/Payton is fair to say is an open question. I'm not saying I'm not nervous about how it might turn out, but for another shot at a SB, it's worth it. The question is can Allen and Carr get us there with a good supporting cast? Time will tell.

Exactly. Rouxable knows exactly why we were forced to adopt this strategy in 2020. Covid. We had this discussion before. We got another 3-4 years of this kind of cap management until we can get back to a lil more normal.

If anything this saves us from ourselves in free agency as we can't overpay some unproductive DT's or re-sign a backup LB that would in all reality be a luxury.

 

[Rouxble]

There's a good reason for that increased aggressiveness though. Covid. The only way the team was going to stay competitive was to do what Loomis has done. Whether it works post-Brees/Payton is fair to say is an open question. I'm not saying I'm not nervous about how it might turn out, but for another shot at a SB, it's worth it. The question is can Allen and Carr get us there with a good supporting cast? Time will tell.

I agree, time will tell, but we would have been tremendously over the cap in 2021 with or without the COVID year. We were something like $110m over, had the cap gone up a generous 10% instead of going down we would have been $70m over.

In 2020 we did basically what the Bucs did in 2022, have a blowout year the last year of our HOF QB, and I get it, but I know that since then we have been going all in every year.

As of now, it looks like we might actually carry some capacity forward, which is good, it depends on what they do with Peat. Several other contracts have dollars open to restructure that we haven’t touched, which is more in line with pre-2020 strategy.

 

[Rouxble]

One thing that comes to mind is you would think that a team that operates this way would value draft picks as a ready source of cheap labor to fill in gaps in the roster. But far from being a team that trades down to accumulate picks, we’ve consistently sacrificed picks to trade up. Fewer picks and high cap leverage seems a curious combination…

Another way to look at it is we are more dependent on draft picks being immediate contributors, and we are willing to trade up to get players that fit that profile. If you are cap constrained, developmental picks take up valuable space without an on field contribution.

That doesn’t explain a pick like Davenport, but I can understand the value in making sure you get your guy when space is scarce.

 

[Rouxble]

Based on our previous discussions/debates though, I do know you like to hear yourself talk and to debate for the sake of debate when it comes to these topics, so have at it if you must.

Always the personal attacks. I could say the same for you, but that wouldn’t push the discussion forward.

 

[St. Geezy]

Always the personal attacks. I could say the same for you, but that wouldn’t push the discussion forward.

The discussion will never move forward with you. You just enjoy being the discenting .01% that rejects anyone's attempts to give you a better understanding.

At the end of the day, it's all moot though. The actual cap experts on the team's payroll speak for us enough.

You can just continue to be on the same hill as Nick Wright, while those of us that actually understand what's happening move forward and accept it.

 

[St. Geezy]

 

[2024InjuryApocalypse]

The difference between the Saints and Eneron is those player salaries are all accounted for. It's not funny money in the sense that it disappears. Some can come off via trades, cuts or other transactions, but it's all accounted for. It's just allocated differently. And again, the salary cap isn't static, so unless it's stagnant or shrinks, a growing cap allows the team to spread out money over varying lengths of time. There's nothing saying the Saints can't do it.

Loomis knows the tricks of the trade and managed to keep a competitive core group of players for 15+ years which was good for 4th best record in the NFL and just 4 wins out of 2nd over that time frame. It's a tried and true formula that has worked well and allowed the team to be competitive over a long period of time. It's hard to argue the results imo. The recent dip is indicative of the transition period in which we saw our HOF QB retire and coach move on. It certainly hasn't been without its hiccups, but I think it's wise to not overreact and give Loomis a couple of years to make this transition work with Allen and Carr leading the team.

The recent dip is also tied into some historically awful injury luck. We set the record in 2021 for having the most players start a game in a single season. If that 2021 team had even mediocre injury luck, that's a playoff team.

 

[Optimistic Ozzy]

Nick Wright is not completely wrong. We are losing players due to our cap that is pushed back etc. It's pretty factual, we don't have a fountain of infinity cap.

If you know about the cap, it is kind of an infinite thing.

 

[2024InjuryApocalypse]

Actually, maybe they can. Every year or two the cap goes up. So by pushing dead money back you are paying salary later for cheaper. It’s like using your mortgage to pay off credit card money. Not only do you get a much lower interest rate but you spread the money over many years.

Businesses do this all the time. Even very profitable corporations will take a loan (or sell bonds) to spread expense over years so they have more cash today.

The problem with Wright’s take is (1) the Saints definitely signed Carr knowing these cuts were coming and so all this needs to be thought of as one move, not a desperate decision by a team wanting to win now, and (2) they actually got Carr at a good price. QBs cost $30 M a year these days, end of story. So if the Saints wanted a starter, this had to be done. It wasn’t a reckless move, it was a team that didn’t want to waste a year tanking only to miss out on the QB they wanted because someone traded up. The DLs they released can be replaced with FAs. Those three simply aren’t that good.

This is tangential to the original post, but since you mentioned tanking...My biggest pet peeve with the national media takes on the Saints is all the analytic types act as if tanking is conclusively the best way to build a championship team. But for as much as they condescendingly claim to be more data-driven than philistine fans...what data is there to indicate tanking is the best way to do it?

In the past decade in the three major sports, the Astros and Cubs successfully turned a complete tank into a championship (2 for HOU). But the Chiefs, Rams, Buccaneers, Patriots did not tank. The Warriors, Milwaukee Bucks, Lakers, Raptors (all-in for a 1/2 season rental of Kawhi) did not tank. The Braves, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Nationals did not tank. And if we were to throw up our hands and tank/"take our medicine" our division is too bad for us to get Caleb Williams next year even if we had Dalton running an option offense and Dennis Allen doing keg stands before games.

Plus, the Browns went all-in on accumulating high-value draft picks in the early 2010s when Mike Lombardi ran the team and what did it get them? Nothing. Ralph Malbrough of WWL pointed out the Jets twice drafted a QB in the top 5 of the draft in the past 5 years and are now desperately trying to get a vet QB. The 76ers were everyone's darling for "The Process" and they didn't get out of the 2nd round of the playoffs (even if they win this year, I'm not even sure it counts as "The Process" since they ditched that several years ago and Embiid is the only one of their 4 top-5 picks who panned out for them).

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Rouxble]

The discussion will never move forward with you. You just enjoy being the discenting .01% that rejects anyone's attempts to give you a better understanding.

At the end of the day, it's all moot though. The actual cap experts on the team's payroll speak for us enough.

You can just continue to be on the same hill as Nick Wright, while those of us that actually understand what's happening move forward and accept it.

I’m providing concrete facts to support what I’m saying, and the response is usually the hand waving like the above. I’m not dissenting for the sake of dissent, I’m pointing out the reality of the cap and how the Saints have historically managed it.

At the end of the day, there is a divide between two groups on this board. One believes we can sign anyone at any time with no limit, the second group accepts that limits exist. The second group is right.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to say we have limits, and the way the discussion can move forward is to discuss ideas on how the Saints operate within those limits. I’ve posted plenty the last week or so on moves that could be made, or moves that the FO did well to manage the constraints.

Or we can say that so and so on the Saints knows better, so discussion is useless and no one is allowed to question it. In that case, might as well shut down the board, because every single member of the Saints organization from Dennis Allen on down has more experience than the average SR poster and therefore should be above criticism.

 

[St. Geezy]

I’m providing concrete facts to support what I’m saying, and the response is usually the hand waving like the above. I’m not dissenting for the sake of dissent, I’m pointing out the reality of the cap.

At the end of the day, there is a divide between two groups on this board. One believes we can sign anyone at any time with no limit, the second group accepts that limits exist. The second group is right.

It’s not the worst thing in the world to say we have limits, and the way the discussion can move forward is to discuss ideas on how the Saints operate within those limits. I’ve posted plenty the last week or so on moves that could be made, or moves that the FO did well to manage the constraints.

Or we can say that so and so on the Saints knows better, so discussion is useless and no one is allowed to question it. In that case, might as well shut down the board, because every single member of the Saints organization from Dennis Allen on down has more experience than the average SR poster and therefore should be above criticism.

Of course there are limits. The team must make decisions on how they CHOOSE to allocate their resources, just like every other team does, which is the point. What team out there ISN'T losing players? We are just playing things differently than other teams do.

And you use the word "group" very loosely I see.

Do we have to hear from you and Nick Wright every single time we lose a player...an average player at that? As if other teams throughout the league aren't losing average or even GOOD/GREAT players despite their "responsible" cap management styles?

 

[Rouxble]

Of course there are limits. The team must make decisions on how they CHOOSE to allocate their resources, just like every other team does, which is the point. What team out there ISN'T losing players? We are just playing things differently than other teams do.

And you use the word "group" very loosely I see.

Again, pointless to discuss with you.