NOF: Saints in position to get under the cap with ease and create another $30+ million in cap space to add new players (2 Viewers)

[Optimistic Ozzy]

Sure! Just keep unproductive players and it’s all fine :/

Well, we're looking at best 6-11, more realistically, 5-12 next year, DA is gone and we reboot. So I'd eat whatever I had to eat this upcoming year to make it palatable for 2025.

 

[St. Widge]

Not really. Not when you can keep pushing more into the future.

Again, there are levels to all of it. The bottom line is that if you’re not drafting well, no method of cap manipulation works. Lack of talent bites you.

And that is really the biggest problem for this team. While they have drafted okay since 2017 and have hit on a few guys. Drafting okay isn't good enough to keep you as a playoff team. There needs to be some improvement regarding the evaluation of college talent and maybe their approach to the draft.

 

[Rouxble]

I am talking about the money people, not the coaching staff. The people in charge of creating the space create it. It’s the players being picked and how they are coached where we are failing.

Other teams have talent evaluation issues also, they solve them by cutting the bad players loose because they didn’t overburden themselves with dead money. Everyone bashed the Bucs for eating Brady’s dead money in one year, they won the division and open next year with $50m in cap space before any making any moves.

 

[donato]

Any created cap space should be used on signing minimum salary guys and paying future debt. This team isn't winning a Super Bowl. And you can say it's fine to kick the can down the road, but that's why we couldn't keep people like Trey Hendrickson.

 

[St. Geezy]

Exactly, we lack the flexibility that 31 other teams do, but continue to celebrate the strategy despite the results. Getting under the cap has become the end goal rather than the means to actually winning.

The 31 other teams, if we are talking purely dollars and not evaluating based on personnel luck and errors, are WAY less flexible than the Saints. Are you kidding me?

Hell, the reason we are in this (perceived) mess is because we stretch things to the absolute max.

Again, this commentary is based solely on spending power.

 

[St. Geezy]

Other teams have talent evaluation issues also, they solve them by cutting the bad players loose because they didn’t overburden themselves with dead money. Everyone bashed the Bucs for eating Brady’s dead money in one year, they won the division and open next year with $50m in cap space before any making any moves.

We swung and (MAYBE) missed on the QB. That’s the biggest difference there.

 

[DerrickB]

So did Loomis give DA give Nick permission to write this?

 

[Consigliere]

 

[Saint Spud]

You can, but with less than $10m to work with it doesn't open a lot of doors to make any splash signings. I would expect another sunshine pumping hype train about a bunch of rotational guys that we ultimately sign and expect to play key roles on our team. We'll also hear about how our roster is stacked after signing said rotational players. And then we'll wonder why we get the same results on Sunday.

And as always, we don't have the ability to cut a guy to create space. When Taylor Lewan's knee was done, right or wrong he was cut with zero cap impact to the Titans.

If Ramczyk can't play because of his condition, we're going to have to figure out how to account for his $35m in dead money, and restructuring him would almost certainly be off the table. Had we paid Ramczyk according to the original contract (as the Titans did with Lewan), we would only be looking at around $8m in dead money.

And before someone says the Titans cap strategy is irrelevant because they suck, they have more playoff trips in the last five years than we do, including a trip to the AFCCG. We've also only won two more games than them over the past two years.

I don’t think we make any splash signings. But some of the rotation guys you mention played well in spots. Which is what you hope to accomplish in FA if you build a decent roster otherwise.

As far as the Titans, their “cap strategy” led to them trading their best player not named Derrick Henry and then subsequently falling off a cliff. If you’re not retaining your good players, then what difference does it make? Theyre “flexible…” for what?

 

[Elvis]

The 31 other teams, if we are talking purely dollars and not evaluating based on personnel luck and errors, are WAY less flexible than the Saints. Are you kidding me?

Hell, the reason we are in this (perceived) mess is because we stretch things to the absolute max.

Again, this commentary is based solely on spending power.

This is dead wrong. If Cam Jordan (35), Demario Davis(34) and Ryan Ramczyk (broken) were to retire tomorrow without making team friendly concessions, this team would be completely up a creek. Worse than they were because of the Covid year. The problem is that these problems are by choice, not by world changing circumstances like the covid year.

 

[St. Widge]

You can, but with less than $10m to work with it doesn't open a lot of doors to make any splash signings. I would expect another sunshine pumping hype train about a bunch of rotational guys that we ultimately sign and expect to play key roles on our team. We'll also hear about how our roster is stacked after signing said rotational players. And then we'll wonder why we get the same results on Sunday.

And as always, we don't have the ability to cut a guy to create space. When Taylor Lewan's knee was done, right or wrong he was cut with zero cap impact to the Titans.

If Ramczyk can't play because of his condition, we're going to have to figure out how to account for his $35m in dead money, and restructuring him would almost certainly be off the table. Had we paid Ramczyk according to the original contract (as the Titans did with Lewan), we would only be looking at around $8m in dead money.

And before someone says the Titans cap strategy is irrelevant because they suck, they have more playoff trips in the last five years than we do, including a trip to the AFCCG. We've also only won two more games than them over the past two years.

Splash singings rarely work out in the NFL and they can clear $30 million in cap space if they want to so they can make a splash signing if they want to.

As far as Ram, if he has to retire, they will likely do what they did when Brees retired and split the cap hit over two years. It's not ideal but it can be done as long as Gayle Benson is willing to keep writing big checks to players instead of writing many smaller checks to them.

But, like any way to manage the cap, it all depends on drafting well and choosing the keep the right players. The failing of this team since 2018 have been in making bad decisions on who to pay and not drafting well enough to fill the roster with good, young, relatively cheap players.

 

[St. Widge]

Well, we're looking at best 6-11, more realistically, 5-12 next year, DA is gone and we reboot. So I'd eat whatever I had to eat this upcoming year to make it palatable for 2025.

You are really going to have to change your user name at some point.

 

[St. Geezy]

I don’t think we make any splash signings. But some of the rotation guys you mention played well in spots. Which is what you hope to accomplish in FA if you build a decent roster otherwise.

As far as the Titans, their “cap strategy” led to them trading their best player not named Derrick Henry and then subsequently falling off a cliff. If you’re not retaining your good players, then what difference does it make? Theyre “flexible…” for what?

Exactly. Using a “healthy cap” system just means you are being WAY less flexible and confining yourself to remain flexible.

I can barely name more than a handful of players on that roster, but hey, they have a “healthy” cap, I guess.

 

[St. Widge]

This is dead wrong. If Cam Jordan (35), Demario Davis(34) and Ryan Ramczyk (broken) were to retire tomorrow without making team friendly concessions, this team would be completely up a creek. Worse than they were because of the Covid year. The problem is that these problems are by choice, not by world changing circumstances like the covid year.

But they will make team friendly concessions when they choose to retire. Either because the choose to do it for an organization that has done a lot for them or because they get a few hundred thousand to do it.

 

[St. Geezy]

This is dead wrong. If Cam Jordan (35), Demario Davis(34) and Ryan Ramczyk (broken) were to retire tomorrow without making team friendly concessions, this team would be completely up a creek. Worse than they were because of the Covid year. The problem is that these problems are by choice, not by world changing circumstances like the covid year.

My commentary is about spending power over the past few years and you said I’m dead wrong and you’ve subsequently went on a tangent here about a future (unlikely) hypothetical.