Ask Underhill (1 Viewer)

Underhill

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Hey everyone,

With camps set to start soon I wanted to jump in come in here and do a Q&A with you guys to help set the stage for the season. I'll pop in and out of here throughout the week and answer as many questions as I can as time permits.

As always, I see and appreciate the support you all show to me. Anyone who wants to sign up to the site can do so with the code that I set up awhile ago for you all. Just use SAINTSREPORTCOM at checkout to save $10 on an annual plan.
 
Thanks for taking the time Nick!

Has the NFL given you/the media any idea what media availability will look like?
Are they trying to set up digital meetings (goto meetings, zoom) or anything like that?
 
Thanks for taking the time Nick!

Has the NFL given you/the media any idea what media availability will look like?
Are they trying to set up digital meetings (goto meetings, zoom) or anything like that?

I think it will look pretty normal for us here. We don't have a ton of media. Most everyone should be able to attend the outdoor practices. Attendance will be limited when they move inside, so everyone might end up missing one or two practices this summer, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I think most of the interviews will be conducted on Zoom this season. This isn't based on anything, but I'm not expecting to speak to a player in person until 2021.
 
Do you get the feeling the League has contingency plans for the season.
Example. Cutting the season to division games only in one location per division.
 
How do you think Loomis will handle the 2021 cap decrease, and will he start addressing it now? Are we still in line for some Free Agent bargains before Week One? Thanks!
 
Do you get the feeling the League has contingency plans for the season.
Example. Cutting the season to division games only in one location per division.

They have some contingency plans. We'll see what those look like if things get bad, but I'm not overly concerned yet. Football has stronger protocols than baseball. They aren't traveling for as many games. And if an outbreak happens for a specific team, the schedule sets up so that they'd only really have to be taken out of the mix for a week. I think the league could easily push back the playoffs a week or two if they had to make up some games.

I think the main thing is that we have to assume the virus is going to impact the league in some form or fashion. The hope has to be that it doesn't spread too far within a team before it is caught, but the idea that it isn't going to exist at all isn't realistic. You can probably expect for a couple hundred positive tests this week as players check in.
 
Do you think we will still have any home field advantage this season, and if so, what form will it take?

What impact if any do you expect the lack of a preseason to have on our week one matchup with Brady and the Bucs?
 
How do you think Loomis will handle the 2021 cap decrease, and will he start addressing it now? Are we still in line for some Free Agent bargains before Week One? Thanks!

Had this on the site last week.

  • Brees retires. Cap savings: $13.5 million
  • Convert Cam Jordan’s $11.9 million base salary and $1.9 million roster bonus into a signing bonus and add a voidable year, so the hit gets stretched across five seasons. Cap savings: $11.04 million
  • Convert Michael Thomas’ $12.6 million base salary, convert it to a signing bonus and add two voidable years to his contract to stretch it across five seasons. Savings: $10.08 million
  • Extend Marshon Lattimore and Ryan Ramczyk to backloaded deals. The two players are due to count a combined $21.28 million against the 2021 cap. New Orleans can easily cut that number by $10 million, if not more, by heavily backloading the contracts and placing roster bonuses in future seasons to keep the initial signing bonus lower. Savings $10 million
  • Convert Terron Armstead’s $10.15 million salary to a signing bonus. He already has two voidable years in place on the cap. This maneuver would allow the hit to get spread over three seasons. Cap savings: $6,766,666.
Those moves would leave New Orleans about $13 million over the $175 million cap. Several other moves could get made like turning the base salaries of Taysom Hill ($10.72 million), Janoris Jenkins ($10 million) and Andrus Peat ($9 million) into signing bonuses. Those three moves would put the Saints under cap, while also accounting for the minimum contract that would have to take the place of Brees on the top-51 salary list. New Orleans would need to add a voidable year to Hill’s deal to push half of his salary forward, but could spread it out even more if needed.

The Saints could also save $6 million by cutting Nick Easton, and another $5 million by cutting Malcom Brown.
 
Do you think we will still have any home field advantage this season, and if so, what form will it take?

What impact if any do you expect the lack of a preseason to have on our week one matchup with Brady and the Bucs?

I don't know if home-field advantage will exist like it once did. But there will be a significant advantage for those with familiarity. If there are limited crowds/limited noise, teams won't be able to communicate the way they normally do. That will mean changing calls, using hand signals, and protecting your communication. If everyone can hear everything you say, you won't be able to say much. For a team that knows each other well changing these things will be easy. Seems simple, but believe it or not, teams don't change all of this stuff all the time. If you watch every 2-minute drill from 2015 until 2019 and document Brees' hand signals and draw the corresponding plays, you'll see that some of those hand signals in 2015 are still the same in 2019. Now, imagine you're a team that is just getting used to each other and the playbook and you're changing signals every week,
 
Hey Underhill, thanks for coming on here and doing a great service for the fellow Who Dats!!!! Question I seen that there are many teams looking at Everson Griffen (GB showing interest) do you have any knowledge if Saints were one of the many teams interested or maybe the brass is stuck on Clowney? 🤷🏾‍♂️🙄.
 

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