Dead Money On The Saints 2024 Salary Cap As Of Now (1 Viewer)

[Artifactual]

From a Saints Wire article by John Sigler 6/2/24 on saintwire.usatoday.com

Dead money: Saints paying $41.4M for 7 players not on their roster​

It’s tough to field a competitive roster when you’re spending too many salary cap resources on players not on your team — that’s a painful lesson the New Orleans Saints have had to learn while creatively working around the cap. This year, per Over The Cap, they’re setting aside $41,428,902 as dead money from contracts with players no longer on the team.

That number ranks ninth around the league, with three of the eight teams ahead of New Orleans returning from last season’s playoffs. And we should remember this is relative; the Saints are paying about 16.2% of their total salary cap expenditures as dead money, compared to past seasons:

• 2019: 11.4%
• 2020: 11.6%
• 2021: 26.5%
• 2022: 21.2%
• 2023: 12.9%

So while we are seeing a jump in dead money costs this season, it’s still a far cry from how dire the situation was just a couple of years ago. And with the salary cap continuing to rise as broadcasting revenue increases, this won’t be as big a challenge for the Saints to work around as it has been in the past.

Peat accounts for almost a third of the Saints’ total dead money costs this year.

Thomas is the other big one, with a cap hit that counts for 27% of the Saints’ total dead money.

These two players account for almost 60% of the total dead money for the Saints in 2024.



Full Article Below:

Dead money: Saints paying $41.4M for 7 players not on their roster

Dead money: The New Orleans Saints are paying more than $41.4M for seven players not on their roster in 2024

saintswire.usatoday.com

 

[SweetT]

It’s all good. Both of Peat’s and MT’s contracts fall off of the books after this year. It just seems staggering right now in the moment, but will be a non-issue next year. Only speaking about those two contracts

 

[St. Geezy]

BREAKING NEWS: NFL team faces harsh consequences from contracts that were bad and ill-advised in hindsight

 

[Stalwart385]

Say you sign someone for 45 mil over 3 years. You only account for 1 mil for 3 straight years on the cap. Then when they leave, you account for the remaining 42 mil without them on the team. Was any of that a bad contract or did you just decide to move around the money for your purposes? Meanwhile, while you pay that 42 mil dead money someone else is only being paid 1 mil.

My point is that none of that matters. It is all the same money. It's just a matter of them being worth that original 45 mil or not.

PS: Yes Mike was not worth the money we paid him because he couldn't stay healthy. I think everyone was fine with the contract at the time, just bad luck with all the injuries.

 

[St. Geezy]

If you sign someone for 45 mil over 3 years. You only account for 1 mil for 3 straight years on the cap. Then when they leave, you account for the remaining 42 mil without them on the team. Was any of that a bad contract or did you just decide to move around the money for your purposes? Meanwhile, while you pay that 42 mil dead money someone else is only being paid 1 mil.

My point is that none of that matters. It is all the same money. It's just a matter of them being worth that original 45 mil or not.

PS: Yes Mike was not worth the money we paid him because he couldn't stay healthy. I think everyone was fine with the contract at the time, just bad luck with all the injuries.

Exactly. Been making the same point forever. We face to same problems as everyone else, just with different cosmetics.

The regret isn’t how we operate; the regret is that many of the deals (and premium draft picks) aren’t working out. Whether due to injury or not, we have way too many busts as of late.

 

[SweetT]

Just wait until John sees what Denver is paying Russell Wilson just to get rid of him

 

[livefromDC]

But here's what dead salary cap doesn't show. For each of those players, they accounted for a smaller percentage of the salary cap when they were on the team then they would have otherwise. Meaning, the Saints decreased the percentage of the present year's salary cap that each player accounted for while they were still with the team. This had 2 distinct benefits:
1. The ability to retain more valuable players because each respective player isn't taking up too much cap space. Call it the Joe Flacco Effect.
2. The "value" of the cap hit actually decreases with time as long as the salary cap increases. Because the salary cap is mucher higher in 2024 than in 2021 or 2022, the dead money percentage for peat is significantly less than the real cap hit % would have been then. The same dollar amounts but percentage wise a better long term decision since NFL team salary caps are not static numbers.

In short, dead money is not a bad problem to have when you have good players. I'd much rather that then the teams with cap space and bad players. Even if the Saints give out a contract that they shouldn't every few years, it's a better environment than a team that's hoarding cap space and not improving their roster. That's not something to aspire to.

 

[Clintonrebel]

Exactly. Been making the same point forever. We face to same problems as everyone else, just with different cosmetics.

The regret isn’t how we operate; the regret is that many of the deals (and premium draft picks) aren’t working out. Whether due to injury or not, we have way too many busts as of late.

Yep. Imagine the uproar had we not re-signed MT. It was the right thing to do at the time.

 

[texasjefe]

It's nice for once for them to be doing normal common-sense things.

Not hyper-maxing out the credit card

retiring the Payton-Brees offense

bringing in the Ghost of Bill Walsh offense

shedding some long-in-the-tooth vets

drafting players from top conferences and leaving future draft picks alone

-

The aggressive cap style was a staple of the last era. It has not worked after Brees and Payton left.

While it's a little apples to oranges, perhaps if the Saints had changed styles earlier, they may have invested more in a T-Rex, CJGJ, Yiadom, and others etc..

 

[Hank]

It's nice for once for them to be doing normal common-sense things.

Not hyper-maxing out the credit card

retiring the Payton-Brees offense

bringing in the Ghost of Bill Walsh offense

shedding some long-in-the-tooth vets

drafting players from top conferences and leaving future draft picks alone

-

The aggressive cap style was a staple of the last era. It has not worked after Brees and Payton left.

While it's a little apples to oranges, perhaps if the Saints had changed styles earlier, they may have invested more in a T-Rex, CJGJ, Yiadom, and others etc..

Next pill to swallow will be RAM--

 

[madsaint1967]

Exactly. Been making the same point forever. We face to same problems as everyone else, just with different cosmetics.

The regret isn’t how we operate; the regret is that many of the deals (and premium draft picks) aren’t working out. Whether due to injury or not, we have way too many busts as of late.

That’s really what this boils down to, contracts that haven’t worked out because of injury. Most of the highest contracts, Peat, Thomas and now Lattimore are seen in a bad light because of injury. A few bad draft picks and a few key injured starters and throw in some bad coaching and we are here. Getting rid of these contracts will take time and we are rebuilding even if they don’t acknowledge it.

 

[donato]

The MT one was fine. Nobody could've known how injury-plagued he would become. The Peat deal however was panned by the vast majority the day it was signed. Just really bad management on that one.