How Much Cap Space Will We Actually Have? (1 Viewer)

But the money for next years cap and onward is free for backloading. I would say mid-tier CB Kilpatrick/Gilmore and a G like Ron Leary would be enough. Maybe squeeze a mid-tier LB like Timmons too.

Resigning fairly alone will probably cost us 8 mil a year average. The total for signing the remainder of just role playing players i estimate at about 15 million. So your looking at like 23 million spent before we even sign Kenny vaccaro to a long term deal. I think we will probably have like 11-12 million to work with in free agency. Getting a good guard, cornerback, and linebacker will probably not happen. We maybe get one or two, but i doubt we fill all needs.

I also don't think the saints will backload any contracts. That got us into cap hell to begin with. We can't even get to the playoffs, we need to be making smart personnel moves because we are farther away from it than the fans think we are.
 
Also if Brees doesn't work out a deal for 2018 I think we owe him 18 million in 2018. That's 18 million for a player that won't even be on the team. I don't think we start back loading contracts just because of that.
 
Everyone always craps on Loomis for taking swings on free agents that didn't pan out, but who amongst us thought Byrd would be a bad signing when it was made? Craig Robertson was solid. Nate Stupar was solid. Going backwards, Jabari Greer sure did work out, and so did Sharper. Some of these signings didn't work out. But if the front office never even took swings in free agency, some of you would be losing your minds about the lack of effort.

Let's take some swings in free agency with what we've got. Restructure some dudes, cut others. Backload some contracts again for the growing cap. We can still make a splash. Let's not get so scared by contracts that didn't pan out that we don't even wanna TRY. That's just silly. I want a guard and a solid corner in free agency. I want Loomis to try for it, and I ain't scared of old contracts where the team whiffed. There were plenty where they didn't.

I agree with this. Brees can't play at this level forever we should go all in for next couple of years. Pull a Denver when they got Manning. They went after Ware, Talib and Sanders aggressively and got all of those guys which were key pieces in the championship run. We should do the same. Interesting food for thought what impact getting Melvin Ingram, AJ Bouye and Ron Leary would do for our team.
 
I agree with this. Brees can't play at this level forever we should go all in for next couple of years. Pull a Denver when they got Manning. They went after Ware, Talib and Sanders aggressively and got all of those guys which were key pieces in the championship run. We should do the same. Interesting food for thought what impact getting Melvin Ingram, AJ Bouye and Ron Leary would do for our team.

They were able to get those guys because they didn't piss the cap away with bad contracts. For the last 4 years we lead the league in dead money. We are even starting off the 2017 season with the most dead money. When you properly manage the cap you can get those guys and not have to do crazy contracts for them. I mean for gods sakes we had like 45 million in dead money one year. No serious contender in the last 4 years has carried that kind of dead money. We are even starting 2018 with 18 million in dead money.
 
It wasn't Loomis "making things happen" that got us in trouble. What got us in trouble was cap hits from Graham and Galette when we decided to just eat the $ and cut our losses. Outside of Byrd who is looking like a better signing now we haven't really made any bad deals in years. Yes you can say Fleener but the way that deal is set up actually works out well and I will give him another year before I fully judge him. In hindsight Galette and Graham were bad signing but not because of performance.

Another thing is some of the trouble we got in was to go win a SB. Don't forget that. You can't have it both ways. Give me a SB and a few years of cap trouble any day over having cap space every year with no ring. Loomis has done a solid job of cleaning house and getting rid of the cap hits to put us in a great spot to go out and improve our team. Don't go looking at the $ like we can only sign this 1 stud and some end of the roster player. We have way more $ then we have ever had and have always gotten things done.

If we have to risk a couple of years down the road to go win a SB over the next few then so be it I'm on board. With the youth movement and arguably 1 or 2 "bad" deals on the roster I would say we are sitting pretty good now and for the future.
 
Best way to sign a good player for cheap is to offer a long term deal way before his rookie contract is done. Not only they get a raise, they get security.

But that can also blow up in your face. The Saints did that with Junior Galette. He subsequently threw a pit bull at a "girlfriend" who wouldn't leave his home, belt-whipped a woman at the beach, and went on a twitter tirade savaging his former teammates and coaches.

I'm of the opinion that the tactics that the team has used under the Payton/Loomis regime are sound; they have just in recent history applied them to the wrong players. The process that allowed that to happen seems to have been corrected, so I'm fine with a couple of moon shots if they feel it necessary to compete next year.
 
And that is how we got in trouble.

What we need is smart signings, both by bringing upcoming free agents and also saving money for the players we want to keep.

Best way to sign a good player for cheap is to offer a long term deal way before his rookie contract is done. Not only they get a raise, they get security.

One thing that has bugged me for a while about Loomis is that he does not offer players extensions early enough. We tend to wait until their contracts are up then overpay.
 
I'd guess it's too early to tell who will/will not restructure, and who will/will not be resigned. I think the main emphasis should be resigning Fairley and they'll do that. I'm of the belief there will be cap room to chase one or 2 good FAs as long as we don't break the bank for the big ones.

Hoping for AJ Bouye at a reasonable price, then following it with a plug in OG. I love some of the DEs that will hit (JPP, Sheard, etc) but they'll be expensive as always. I like this draft's potential with pick 11. I think an immediate sack producer will be available, whether it be Derek Barnett, Tim Williams, Solomon Thomas, or someone that emerges during the draft process. If we can also land another athletic LB to compete with our decent crop in round 2, this team could make a run.

So huge offseason for me would be:
AJ Bouye
FA OG (Not sure specifics on who's available besides the Cincy guy that's getting $$$)
Barnett/Williams/Thomas
Jarrad Davis/Raekwon McMillan
 
And that is how we got in trouble.

What we need is smart signings, both by bringing upcoming free agents and also saving money for the players we want to keep.

Best way to sign a good player for cheap is to offer a long term deal way before his rookie contract is done. Not only they get a raise, they get security.

And this is exactly the formula we started employing last season. I assume the free agency period this year will look a lot like last year.

Even if we only have $12 million in cap space after signing all our guys, that's more than we had (with better players) going into it this past year and we still were able to make a legit offer to sign Josh Norman at the end of Free Agency.

I trust that they've learned from their FA blockbuster mistakes since they showed last year that they weren't still making them.
 
With $10-$11m you can only sign 1 big ticket player, and we need more than 1 player, so we will probably have to go after more of the Nate Stupar, Craig Roberson types.

I completely agree with you btw about Loomis making it happen is what got us into our fiscal mess. We need to learn from those mistakes or turn into the Browns.

That's not what got us in the mess... trading Graham and cutting Galette accelerated their contracts and created huge dead money along with signing a player like Byrd for superstar money while he wofully under performed. And then clearing out old contracts.

I'm not happy with much of the drafting and FA signings of past years (until 15) but creative accounting kept the team viable while we purged the roster.
 
One thing that has bugged me for a while about Loomis is that he does not offer players extensions early enough. We tend to wait until their contracts are up then overpay.

Like who?

You can't force everyone to sign early. Drew Brees wasn't going to sign early 5-6 years ago. He had a power play and all the advantage if healthy. He nailed it, forced a grievance on the franchise tag, drove his value up after winning, etc. Same type of story with Jimmy Graham. Certain people know their value lies on hitting the (perceived) open market or via the tag and sign game.

Outside of those two names, the Saints have pushed for extensions early for just about every player imaginable, and given some to players that even begged for them (KLew).

All these players have been signed before their deals were up:

Cam Jordan
Max Unger
Jahri Evans (first time around)
Terron Armstead
Junior Galette
Keenan Lewis
Marques Colston
Thomas Morstead

There's more on the list, but in terms of key players over the past decade, those guys have all, at one time or now, been considered the key cogs to the team, and Loomis signed them all to extensions.

Very few players let their deal run out, and if they did, they had reasons. Brees and Graham obviously fit the bill. Carl Nicks too. People like Nicks want to hit the open market and cash in. To Nicks' credit, he did. Not everyone is going to accept less money early just because it's there. Some people will bet on themselves, regardless. And then they have the power. You're not going to tell me that you wouldn't overpay for a Brees, etc if they got to the open market?
 
I expect we'll have to pay a bit to keep Moore around. He'll be a UFA coming off a good season someone will make a bid for him.
 
Loomis could do work with $20M in cap space and some of the in house FA's wont be retained. Do you pay Fairley $6-$9M or find a space-eater to pair with Rankins? Did Byrd do enough for another yr, or do you cut bait and draft another young play-making safety? I personally dont think any of the CB should be prioritized if they aren't already under contract, they are all replaceable. Breaux and PJ get extended looks, get some new guys in there. Moore and Webb and the rest were available on the streets for a reason. Edibali and Kruger not the answer we need a DE over there that can get there. Kiki has the tools but he has injury concerns. The saints are not that far away if they can find a couple difference makers on defense.
 

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