dead money kills us again (2 Viewers)

[AmerVet]

I really don't know how these things work or why money is dead or alive but for the sake of not looking like the dummy, I'll....

 

[Chinese bandits]

It was fine when Drew was here, but it's time to pay those bills and get our picks back. This is not a SuperBowl team

This ^
The problem is we don’t have the players or the money, we aren’t as good as we were last year bc we do not have the same players. Yet we always want to blame it on coaches “Fire DA” or “Fire Pete Carmichael” it is gonna take at least 2 years to dig out of the hole we are in when we stop “Kicking the can”. If we are able to do it without having a fire sale and 3-6 win seasons then we will be let down easy. Yes we still have a lot of talent but the best teams in the NFL have gone out and traded draft picks to increase odds of winning this year. Rams won last year bc they made improvements at the deadline. Eagles and 49ers both made moves to improve and as a result will probably be in NFC CG this year. Meanwhile Cowboys didn’t make any moves so if they get beat by these teams critics gonna say “why didn’t they make a move”

 

[Igordão]

The cap went from $182 million last year to $208 million this year to a projected $225 million next year.

Players salaries haven’t jumped that much lol.

And even if they do, then it still means the dead $ were pushing into the future is a smaller percentage of both the cap AND current player salaries.

Player salary is jumping as much as the cap. Every year the cap is bigger for every team it's a lot of new available money for teams to overpay players and then the saints needs to do some magic just to be able to field a team.

 

[AGW85]

Really its 30 million dead cap on 4 players (Armstead, Brees, Jenkins, Winston) and 6 million on the other 16.

Exactly. This is a USATODAY article. We have better cap analysis on this board.

They chose "20 players" to fit a headline. Does anyone care that we're paying 160k to DaMarcus Fields? Or 120k to Lucas Krull? That's part of the regular churn of the bottom of the roster.

As you said, this article is really about carrying 12m in dead money for Armstead, 12m for Brees, and 3m apiece for Jenkins and Winston. Which is a justifiable course of events and not out of line with the rest of the league.

 

[B4YOU]

The team currently atop the Saints' division has almost $79 Million in dead cap this year per Sportrac.

It's important, but not make all break all, and as others have pointed out, the Saints are not too far off the league average.

Atlanta is clearing future cap space by pushing forward cap hits this year. They are actively planning for the future with a tank year. They are just outperforming expectations with their lack of talent.

 

[Saint Spud]

Player salary is jumping as much as the cap. Every year the cap is bigger for every team it's a lot of new available money for teams to overpay players and then the saints needs to do some magic just to be able to field a team.

If you can point me to where player salaries have jumped over 10% (median and average) from one year to the next and are projected to jump another 10% from this year to next year, based on the pre-existing base salaries of all players (which is what we’re talking about here), I’d love to see it.

And to the greater point, we aren’t paying a QB big $ starting next year (unless we find an elite QB in FA or in a trade). Whereas we had been paying one for the previous 15 years.

So it allows us to pay off some dead $ debt.

 

[B4YOU]

The cap went from $182 million last year to $208 million this year to a projected $225 million next year.

Players salaries haven’t jumped that much lol.

And even if they do, then it still means the dead $ were pushing into the future is a smaller percentage of both the cap AND current player salaries.

QB and WR salaries have absolutely gone up that much. Agents negotiate QB salaries as a % of the future cap and not just flat $. There are 5 WR that have an average contract at or greater than 25M. That was QB pay 2 years ago.

 

[Saint Spud]

QB and WR salaries have absolutely gone up that much. Agents negotiate QB salaries as a % of the future cap and not just flat $. There are 5 WR that have an average contract at or greater than 25M. That was QB pay 2 years ago.

You picked out two positions.

The roster is 53. And we’re not going to be paying a QB anywhere near that much.

And once we are, his salary will coincide with a drop at other spots.

 

[B4YOU]

You picked out two positions.

The roster is 53. And we’re not going to be paying a QB anywhere near that much.

And once we are, his salary will coincide with a drop at other spots.

Maybe I’m missing your point or it’s not clear. Yoy free cap space by teams isn’t growing. Player salaries eat that growth throughout the spectrum of player positions and service years. The NFL minimum salary grows 10%/yr.

Yes, inflation helps with debt. Just not as much as people think because you are still competing with 31 other teams for FA talent. You have to stop spending for that inflation/debt benefit.

 

[RiverRat]

The NFL salary cap is about as fictional as the US debt. It’s a tool. I’m glad we’ve got a GM that knows how to use it.

 

[Saintcd]

Teams have tools they can use to shift money around like turning a portion of a players base salary into a prorated signing bonus and spread that out over the length of the contract.

Teams can also extend contracts to spread some of that money out over time

Seems like they’ve already abused those tools already and what’s the next step?

 

[platinumvinnyv]

Just when I had given up on SR you brought me back in

Wuz up doc can we rock

 

[town123]

I know exactly how you feel. Any time i talked about the long term viability of staying "All In" I would be shot down with, "You just don't understand how the cap works". Well I always understood how the cap works, it's not that difficult to understand. You don't have to be a brain scientist or a rocket surgeon to understand the cap. My question was never can Loomis keep kicking the can, my question was should he keep kicking the can.

It didn't seem ideal to be starting every offseason digging out of a 50-80 million dollar hole just to get under the cap. I assumed that when Drew retired the all in philosophy would go with him. And then when SP left I was sure that our all in days were behind us. Instead they went all in, again. Except this time they weren't sacrificing the future for a legitimate shot at a championship with a first ballot HoF QB and the best HC in the team's history. This time they were going all in with Jameis Winston. They went all in on a stone cold bluff.

What's done is done. Now they are stuck with these huge cap hits and dead money. They will be forced to keep restructuring contracts to get under the cap and field a team. Even if they wanted to blow it up and start over, they can't. To turn this thing around they have to make every pick count. They have to hit on some UDFAs and they have to find the answer to the QB question. The good news is that we have some of the best talent evaluators in the NFL and they'll make the most of our picks. Of course that's assuming SP doesn't poach them when he picks his next team.

Yep, really good thoughts.

So many concerns with our cap problems, one of which is not being able to trade most players on the team, and that takes another avenue to help fixing our woes. Like you said, our only recourse is hitting on the picks and not signing our own FA's like Davenport etc. Once we sign a guy we play goofy goof with their contract and get in even deeper.

 

[Saint Spud]

Maybe I’m missing your point or it’s not clear. Yoy free cap space by teams isn’t growing. Player salaries eat that growth throughout the spectrum of player positions and service years. The NFL minimum salary grows 10%/yr.

Yes, inflation helps with debt. Just not as much as people think because you are still competing with 31 other teams for FA talent. You have to stop spending for that inflation/debt benefit.

The point is that when you push current dead $ into the future, it will always occupy a smaller % of the cap than if you pay it off now. Because the cap is always going up.

Smart organizations also structure contracts in a way that they’re never “fixed” until the end. So you can time bonus $ (which has the greatest impact on the cap) in a way that benefits the team. In our case, we can push cap hits to years in which we’re not taking a cap hit for a franchise QB (Brees or whoever is next).

 

[Saint Spud]

Seems like they’ve already abused those tools already and what’s the next step?

Keep doing it since it’s working and we currently aren’t paying a franchise QB