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)

[Rouxble]

I’ve seen that chart. It doesn’t account for how we do business.

And you’re right. Tennessee stinks because they made poor personnel decisions. Just like us. We manage the cap differently but are in a similar spot because our drafts stink.

Of course it accounts for how we do business. How does it not? It shows current cap space and how much room can be created by restructuring contracts. Every year, we restructure practically every contract that allows for it.

 

[St. Geezy]

We just see it differently. They are using a longer cap management model that I think isn't smart. It doesn't allow the team to move off of old or under performing players without massive ramifications. Yes, they were able to go get Derek Carr, but say they thought that signing was a mistake. Or that his AC joint ended up completely shredded when he got injured this year. Could they leave his contract alone to get out from under it in 2025? No, they couldn't. There is no scenario where they aren't kicking his cap number into 2026 and guaranteeing him more money than his original contract had in it regardless of how poorly he played or his availability. That is in large part because of the same strategy used to manage the cap number of other players in prior years.

Pretty much every team would be screwed if the QB they paid big money for went down with a serious injury. This isn’t just a Saints problem.

 

[St. Geezy]

They swung and missed thinking Burks could step in and be the guy, that or decided that the team went through Henry and everyone else was just window dressing. Also, Brown was coming off a year where he missed four games and had less than 1000 yards receiving, they may have decided that he wasn't worth a big commitment.

At the end of the day, all other teams have more flexibility on their roster decisions, and they maintain that flexibility by not maxing out every year with a mid roster. There has to be a reason teams aren't falling over themselves to imitate our strategy, nothing that works in this league goes without being copied.

This chart is misleading, because it is ranked (I think) by possible cap space with max restructures, and as demonstrated here, most teams aren’t doing that, so it makes us look worse than we actually are.

 

[Elvis]

And thats where we are disagreeing. Those ramifications can be pushed into the future over and over using different player contracts as a shell game.

You can be successful with it as long as you’re drafting well. Just like any other method. Which, unfortunately, we haven’t done.

So if it only works under circumstances of consistently drafting well and that isn't happening, is it a good strategy? Or is it a better strategy to manage things a little tighter to create some roster flexibility?

 

[St. Widge]

We just see it differently. They are using a longer cap management model that I think isn't smart. It doesn't allow the team to move off of old or under performing players without massive ramifications. Yes, they were able to go get Derek Carr, but say they thought that signing was a mistake. Or that his AC joint ended up completely shredded when he got injured this year. Could they leave his contract alone to get out from under it in 2025? No, they couldn't. There is no scenario where they aren't kicking his cap number into 2026 and guaranteeing him more money than his original contract had in it regardless of how poorly he played or his availability. That is in large part because of the same strategy used to manage the cap number of other players in prior years.

The way they do things does make getting it right with talent evaluation more important, but I really don't think it is much different than for other teams. And if, and it's a big if, you do it the way the Saints do, when you create a very good team, you can keep the players that make you very good instead of having to cycle through a rebuild every time you have a good but very expensive team.

That being said, since we don't have a good team right now, I would personally start to take a step back on all the void years stuff because the team is getting older and most of them, outside of Cam and Demario, aren't going to be worth the cap hit to let them go when they get older. I think the converting base salaries into signing bonuses is fine to keep doing, but the void years can create issues down the road. The downside of what they do is that if they evaluate the talent wrong, and do a bunch of void years for a guy that they HAVE to cut, then it becomes a problem. But, again that's really a talent evaluation issue and there are mechanisms they use to spread even unexpected retirement or letting guys go work in their cap. It's what they did with Lattimore this year that would allow them to trade him while still working within the cap.

Then again, as long as Gayle Benson is willing to write big checks, they can keep doing what they are doing and still sing big free agents.

 

[St. Widge]

So if it only works under circumstances of consistently drafting well and that isn't happening, is it a good strategy? Or is it a better strategy to manage things a little tighter to create some roster flexibility?

Everything only works under certain circumstances. And, if you aren't drafting well or evaluating talent well, no way of managing the cap works.

 

[St. Geezy]

The miss on the QB will ultimately have more to do with not having the stacked roster our FO seems to think we have, particularly up front. We're hoping to get incredibly lucky at this point because we may need three new starters on the OL just one year after our prize free agent acquisition.

Does our team really have any game-changing talents on it at this point that justify being all in like we are? I would say no, not since Brees.

Easy for us to say in hindsight, but you and I both know we were all excited about this roster going into 2023.

We underestimated our coaching ineptness and also didn’t think Carr would start off as slow as he did or that we would be dealing with a certifiable, no redemption arc possible first round bust at arguably the second most important position on offense.

Answering your question though, I don’t think our roster is as bad as it’s being made out to be. It just doesn’t have the level of coaching we need.

If SP was here, we’d be sitting on at least 11 wins and we wouldn’t even be having this critical discussion.

 

[Goatman Saint]

What we don’t know about the restructures, particularly in the case of Ram, is what wording got inserted in there in case he retires. That’s the big thing. OTC and such sees the published number, not the nuances which I’m sure are in a contract like that for Ram. I doubt knowing the situation there want some verbiage put in there

 

[Elvis]

Pretty much every team would be screwed if the QB they paid big money for went down with a serious injury. This isn’t just a Saints problem.

Not every team would be forced to restructure that injured QB, guaranteeing even him more money, because of a cap management strategy. Yes, other teams would be in a bad way, but they aren't tying themselves to addition years under that scenario. This team would have no choice.

 

[St. Geezy]

Not every team would be forced to restructure that injured QB, guaranteeing even him more money, because of a cap management strategy. Yes, other teams would be in a bad way, but they aren't tying themselves to addition years under that scenario. This team would have no choice.

This is a rare situation but you’re not going to find very many teams that sign a big payday QB who were able to mathematically/feasibly move on from them after one year.

If our cap was “healthy,” we’d not be able to move on from him because we’d be wanting to keep our cap “healthy.”

 

[St.Dan]

Pretty much in agreement on the obvious about who’s old and probably needs to go. But Davis isn’t declining at the same rate that Jordan is. I think we should still see DD back in the mix at LB in 2024.

 

[St. Widge]

Not every team would be forced to restructure that injured QB, guaranteeing even him more money, because of a cap management strategy. Yes, other teams would be in a bad way, but they aren't tying themselves to addition years under that scenario. This team would have no choice.

Honestly, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Carr and think he is a mid-level QB, if Carr has a career ending injury, this team has no QB (assuming Winston is gone and I think Winston is not as good as Carr) so if Carr goes down they might as well take all the dead money in a year or two, blow it up, gather draft picks, and start over.

 

[Saint Spud]

Of course it accounts for how we do business. How does it not? It shows current cap space and how much room can be created by restructuring contracts. Every year, we restructure practically every contract that allows for it.

Because it’s treating all teams and how they, specifically, use the cap as being equal.

Harley has been at the forefront of pre-writing stuff into contracts and then exercising them later.

Just because other team CAN do the same doesn’t mean they have or do. Thats the key difference. The chart is irrelevant outside of hypotheticals which don’t actually occur.

 

[Rouxble]

This chart is misleading, because it is ranked (I think) by possible cap space with max restructures, and as demonstrated here, most teams aren’t doing that, so it makes us look worse than we actually are.

It shows how much space every team can save by restructuring. On the left is where teams currently are, the mark in the middle of each line is how much space can be created without even negotiating with players, and the last is how much can be created if they added void years to every contract to spread the hits even further.

Every team in the league can open up more available cap space than we can by using the same strategy we do, but they don't. They start from a better position, maybe restructure a contract or two for actual key players, and then position themselves to be in the same spot next year.

If there was a chart called cut/trade capacity to show how much space could be opened up by clearing out bad contracts, we would look tremendously worse.

 

[Rouxble]

Because it’s treating all teams and how they, specifically, use the cap as being equal.

Harley has been at the forefront of pre-writing stuff into contracts and then exercising them later.

Just because other team CAN do the same doesn’t mean they have or do. Thats the key difference. The chart is irrelevant outside of hypotheticals which don’t actually occur.

Practically all NFL veteran contracts have restructuring clauses in them, it isn't unique to the Saints. It's irrelevant that our strategy is different, the chart shows how much space each team could create if they decided to copy us and go on a restructuring spree like we do.