Saints 2020 and 2021 (edit) Possible Player Crisis (edit) (What Front Offices Don't Often Tell their Fans). This is an End User Modeler (I hope) (1 Viewer)

[Loose Cannon]

Saints have about 10mm in cap space next year

They can save:
- 8mm by cutting Kiko Alonso
- 7mm by cutting Rankins
- 4mm for Patrick Robinson
- ~5mm for random role players (Edwards, Robertson)

I imagine all those guys are gone. That's 24 million. So we have 34mm in cap space.

If they re-sign Brees it kicks the can down the road on his dead money. So basically re-signing Brees is a break even. We can actually re-sign a few guys to longer-term deals and _lower_ their cap number next year. Warford, Janoris Jenkins, Demario Davis, Cook, Malcolm Brown are good candidates for that. They can probably find another $15-20mm here. Jenkins can also be cut and save even more, if they want to go that route.

All of those moves leave the Saints with around $60mm of cap space prior to free agency and the draft. None of our 2020 free agents save Vonn Bell are critical. Bell will eat maybe $10mm of that (assuming we sign him).

Take another $20mm to sign rookies and play a little bit in free agency. That leaves us with about $30 million. That's enough to restructure and extend Lattimore and Ram to long term deals at about $17-18mm each (because we still have one cheap year left on both of their contracts), which would make them the top paid CB and OT in football (that's what it's going to take).

Push Kamara's deal off until next year and see what shakes out.

And this is all before Loomis does cap magic that's well beyond my understanding. I'm sure there's another 10 million for the taking using accounting magic. He finds it every year.

They'll make it work. We're not going to land any splash free agents. It'll probably look a lot like the 2018 offseason where we brought in Okafor, P-Rob, Kurt Coleman, and the star of the class Demario Davis.

There will be a reckoning, you can't push the dead money off forever. But it doesn't have to be this offseason if Loomis doesn't want it to be.

 

[St4ever]

Swimmer, please do not take this wrong because I am asking Nd not being negative.
where does these numbers come from? I thought we were being told that Drew was a free agent as of the end of the contract year and would be owed around 25m if he left. We have been told that Jenkins is owed around 11.5m for next year. Has everyone been misleading us to make us think thinks we’re not as bad as they seem? I think Rankins is on his option year which was supposed to be around 5m if I remember right.

the spread sheet is pretty hard to get around.

 

[Swimmer]

Swimmer, please do not take this wrong because I am asking Nd not being negative.
where does these numbers come from? I thought we were being told that Drew was a free agent as of the end of the contract year and would be owed around 25m if he left. We have been told that Jenkins is owed around 11.5m for next year. Has everyone been misleading us to make us think thinks we’re not as bad as they seem? I think Rankins is on his option year which was supposed to be around 5m if I remember right.

the spread sheet is pretty hard to get around.

Sport trac

I had to do some Vlookups and am not the best spreadsheet designer - lol

 

[DaveXA]

Sport trac

I had to do some Vlookups and am not the best spreadsheet designer - lol

You'd do well to fix the color of some the text in the OP. Near impossible to read. Make it all consistent if you want people to read it.

 

[Bayareasaint]

Let me try to talk you down here Swimmer...

We have approximately $12M in cap space as currently constructed. I will make that $50M+ with a few simple moves that seem obvious to me. Then we can talk about how to utilize that money to keep free agents in the building and even adding a player or two.

***Cut Janoris Jenkins. Yes, this will leave us thin at the position. We will address this in free agency. This move saves us roughly $11M ($23M in cap space)***

*** Restructure Michael Thomas. The move would free up about $8M against the cap in 2020 ($31M in cap space)***

*** Release Kiko Alonso. This would give us about $8M in cap space. ($39M in cap space)***

***Extend Warford. He counts about $12.8M this year. If you add 3 years to his deal I would simply say you can easily lower his cap number by $4M in 2020. ($43M in cap space) ***

***Extend Demario Davis. He counts about $10M in 2020. I'd add 2 years to his deal and save about $3M in 2020. ($46M in cap space)***

***Trade Sheldon Rankins for a 2nd round pick. This would free up his nearly $8M 2020 salary. ($54M in cap space)

***Release Mario Edwards. His salary only has a few hundred thousand in dead money. This would save us nearly $3M for 2020 ($57M in cap space)

Now your sitting with $57M to work on resigning your free agents. let's go through it.

Brees: $20M cap hit for 2020 (dead cap hit of $10M in 2021) $37 in cap space
Onyemata: 4/$20 $3M cap hit in 2020 ($34M in cap space)
Bell: 4/$28M $5M cap hit in 2020 ($29M in cap space)
Taysom Hill 4/$26M $4M cap hit in 2020 ($25M in cap space)
Eli Apple 4/$24M $4M cap hit in 2020 ($21M in cap space)
JT Gray $1M
Keith Kirkwood $1M
Justin Hardee $1M (leaves us in the $18M range)

Focus on WR, LG, LB, 2nd string QB so Taysom can Taysom and a 3rd RB. You would also have some flexability to extend Alvin or Ram/Latt.

This is just an exercise on how the cap doesn't mean squat!!! I'm not saying this is what I would do, just that if the Saints need more cap space they can make it happen. I stayed away from restructuring Armstead BTW because of his injury history. Hope this talks you off the ledge a bit.

 

[Trey W.]

Not to worried. Loomis has shown year after year he can manipulate the cap and contracts to open up money. We’ve had much worse off seasons where money was tighter and we made moves happen. Believe in the Loomis!

 

[Analyze This]

Swimmer I appreciate all the work you put into this post. I probably did not give it the attention it requires but my initial scan did not leave me too concerned. To use Sean’s language, there were 5-6 “must” on the whole list (Drew, Taysom, Davis, Warford, Alvin, and Vonn).
I think Loomis and handle it!

 

[Swimmer]

Saints have about 10mm in cap space next year

They can save:
- 8mm by cutting Kiko Alonso
- 7mm by cutting Rankins
- 4mm for Patrick Robinson
- ~5mm for random role players (Edwards, Robertson)

I imagine all those guys are gone. That's 24 million. So we have 34mm in cap space.

If they re-sign Brees it kicks the can down the road on his dead money. So basically re-signing Brees is a break even. We can actually re-sign a few guys to longer-term deals and _lower_ their cap number next year. Warford, Janoris Jenkins, Demario Davis, Cook, Malcolm Brown are good candidates for that. They can probably find another $15-20mm here. Jenkins can also be cut and save even more, if they want to go that route.

All of those moves leave the Saints with around $60mm of cap space prior to free agency and the draft. None of our 2020 free agents save Vonn Bell are critical. Bell will eat maybe $10mm of that (assuming we sign him).

Take another $20mm to sign rookies and play a little bit in free agency. That leaves us with about $30 million. That's enough to restructure and extend Lattimore and Ram to long term deals at about $17-18mm each (because we still have one cheap year left on both of their contracts), which would make them the top paid CB and OT in football (that's what it's going to take).

Push Kamara's deal off until next year and see what shakes out.

And this is all before Loomis does cap magic that's well beyond my understanding. I'm sure there's another 10 million for the taking using accounting magic. He finds it every year.

They'll make it work. We're not going to land any splash free agents. It'll probably look a lot like the 2018 offseason where we brought in Okafor, P-Rob, Kurt Coleman, and the star of the class Demario Davis.

There will be a reckoning, you can't push the dead money off forever. But it doesn't have to be this offseason if Loomis doesn't want it to be.

I think we are using the same site or similar sites, Sportrac? I just checked and if I got this right, not 100% sure, but it says like edit $10,500,000 in cap space. But that is only for players under contract. It has a separate tab for FA's

Players not included in the Saints 2020 Salary Cap Calculation because they are FAs not under Contract

PLAYER (24)	piece of work.	AGE	FROM	TO	2019 AAV	STATUS	MARKET VALUE
Drew Brees	QB	41	NO	TBD	$25,000,000	UFA	Market Value
Teddy Bridgewater	QB	28	NO	TBD	$7,250,000	UFA	Market Value
A.J. Klein	OLB	29	NO	TBD	$6,000,000	UFA	-
Eli Apple	CB	25	NO	TBD	$3,788,080	UFA	-
Andrus Peat	G	26	NO	TBD	$2,848,374	UFA	-
P.J. Williams	CB	27	NO	TBD	$2,250,000	UFA	-
Zach Line	FB	30	NO	TBD	$1,100,000	UFA	-
Vonn Bell	SS	25	NO	TBD	$993,075	UFA	-
Johnson Bademosi	CB	30	NO	TBD	$930,000	UFA	-
Patrick Omameh	RT	30	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Stephone Anthony	ILB	28	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Josh Martin	OLB	28	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Manti Te'o	ILB	29	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
D.J. Swearinger	FS	29	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
David Onyemata	DT	27	NO	TBD	$720,586	UFA	-
Noah Spence	DE	26	NO	TBD	$720,000	UFA	-
Dwayne Washington	RB	26	NO	TBD	$675,000	UFA	-
Zach Wood	LS	27	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
Justin Hardee	CB	26	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
Cameron Tom	G	25	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
J.T. Gray	SS	24	NO	TBD	$570,000	ERFA	-
Austin Carr	WR	26	NO	TBD	$557,500	RFA	-
Taysom Hill	QB	30	NO	TBD	$556,667	RFA	-
Keith Kirkwood	WR	26	NO	TBD	$525,000	ERFA	-

So the $10.5 million cap is if we let all Free Agent players "above"" go which we both know is not possible to keep a pro team together.



What I did was take probably low end guesses on cap hit if we keep these players. For the ones under a million, I just used last years cap number in 2020. There is no 2020 salary for Drew Brees included in the cap and only part of his past due future year cap roll-overs. So if Brees decides to play, that's $20 mil to $30 mil which alone puts us $10 mil to $20 mil over the cap. Then there's a number of players we are likely going to want to resign from the list above, a number that will require some pretty big contracts like: Brees, Taysom Hill, Bell, Onyemata, Klein

 

[Loose Cannon]

I think we are using the same site or similar sites, Sportrac? I just checked and if I got this right, not 100% sure, but it says like edit $10,500,000 in cap space. But that is only for players under contract. It has a separate tab for FA's

Players not included in the Saints 2020 Salary Cap Calculation because they are FAs not under Contract

PLAYER (24)	piece of work.	AGE	FROM	TO	2019 AAV	STATUS	MARKET VALUE
Drew Brees	QB	41	NO	TBD	$25,000,000	UFA	Market Value
Teddy Bridgewater	QB	28	NO	TBD	$7,250,000	UFA	Market Value
A.J. Klein	OLB	29	NO	TBD	$6,000,000	UFA	-
Eli Apple	CB	25	NO	TBD	$3,788,080	UFA	-
Andrus Peat	G	26	NO	TBD	$2,848,374	UFA	-
P.J. Williams	CB	27	NO	TBD	$2,250,000	UFA	-
Zach Line	FB	30	NO	TBD	$1,100,000	UFA	-
Vonn Bell	SS	25	NO	TBD	$993,075	UFA	-
Johnson Bademosi	CB	30	NO	TBD	$930,000	UFA	-
Patrick Omameh	RT	30	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Stephone Anthony	ILB	28	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Josh Martin	OLB	28	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
Manti Te'o	ILB	29	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
D.J. Swearinger	FS	29	NO	TBD	$805,000	UFA	-
David Onyemata	DT	27	NO	TBD	$720,586	UFA	-
Noah Spence	DE	26	NO	TBD	$720,000	UFA	-
Dwayne Washington	RB	26	NO	TBD	$675,000	UFA	-
Zach Wood	LS	27	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
Justin Hardee	CB	26	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
Cameron Tom	G	25	NO	TBD	$645,000	RFA	-
J.T. Gray	SS	24	NO	TBD	$570,000	ERFA	-
Austin Carr	WR	26	NO	TBD	$557,500	RFA	-
Taysom Hill	QB	30	NO	TBD	$556,667	RFA	-
Keith Kirkwood	WR	26	NO	TBD	$525,000	ERFA	-

So the $10.5 million cap is if we let all Free Agent players "above"" go which we both know is not possible to keep a pro team together.





What I did was take probably low end guesses on cap hit if we keep these players. For the ones under a million, I just used last years cap number in 2020. There is no 2020 salary for Drew Brees included in the cap and only part of his past due future year cap roll-overs. So if Brees decides to play, that's $20 mil to $30 mil which alone puts us $10 mil to $20 mil over the cap. Then there's a number of players we are likely going to want to resign from the list above, a number that will require some pretty big contracts like: Brees, Taysom Hill, Bell, Onyemata, Klein

Bayareasaint addressed all of this and laid it out much more succintly than
I did. Go about 6 posts up, he did a great job.

 

[Swimmer]

Let me try to talk you down here Swimmer...

We have approximately $12M in cap space as currently constructed. I will make that $50M+ with a few simple moves that seem obvious to me. Then we can talk about how to utilize that money to keep free agents in the building and even adding a player or two.

***Cut Janoris Jenkins. Yes, this will leave us thin at the position. We will address this in free agency. This move saves us roughly $11M ($23M in cap space)***

*** Restructure Michael Thomas. The move would free up about $8M against the cap in 2020 ($31M in cap space)***

*** Release Kiko Alonso. This would give us about $8M in cap space. ($39M in cap space)***

***Extend Warford. He counts about $12.8M this year. If you add 3 years to his deal I would simply say you can easily lower his cap number by $4M in 2020. ($43M in cap space) ***

***Extend Demario Davis. He counts about $10M in 2020. I'd add 2 years to his deal and save about $3M in 2020. ($46M in cap space)***

***Trade Sheldon Rankins for a 2nd round pick. This would free up his nearly $8M 2020 salary. ($54M in cap space)

***Release Mario Edwards. His salary only has a few hundred thousand in dead money. This would save us nearly $3M for 2020 ($57M in cap space)

Now your sitting with $57M to work on resigning your free agents. let's go through it.

Brees: $20M cap hit for 2020 (dead cap hit of $10M in 2021) $37 in cap space
Onyemata: 4/$20 $3M cap hit in 2020 ($34M in cap space)
Bell: 4/$28M $5M cap hit in 2020 ($29M in cap space)
Taysom Hill 4/$26M $4M cap hit in 2020 ($25M in cap space)
Eli Apple 4/$24M $4M cap hit in 2020 ($21M in cap space)
JT Gray $1M
Keith Kirkwood $1M
Justin Hardee $1M (leaves us in the $18M range)

Focus on WR, LG, LB, 2nd string QB so Taysom can Taysom and a 3rd RB. You would also have some flexability to extend Alvin or Ram/Latt.

This is just an exercise on how the cap doesn't mean squat!!! I'm not saying this is what I would do, just that if the Saints need more cap space they can make it happen. I stayed away from restructuring Armstead BTW because of his injury history. Hope this talks you off the ledge a bit.

Awesome. Brilliant. Thx so much.

From what I saw, this year looks like a picnic compared to next. Can we continue to endlessly push down cap hits into the future? A few years back, we had so much dead money every year that it prevented us from getting talent depth. Are we facing a day reckoning or can we just continue to manufacture low caps for the coming year while pushing higher caps down the road?

The raw numbers are frightening to me.

Thx!

 

[reason2believe]

Wow. Sorry but, I am glad you aren’t running the show.

 

[TheGooch]

 

[DerrickB]

Some of these guys will be here next season, and some will not. Plain and simple.

 

[Saintaholik]

We are facing a massive talent loss in 2020 and 2021 including many young stars. I wanted us to be able to see the actual players, their numbers and be able for each viewer to do scenarios as they see best fit. I have been playing with these numbers in a live Google Sheets spreadsheet and it's real scary. We haven't had the numbers nor tools to see what the Saints FO is actually looking at and using for the basis for planning the actual 2020 and 2021 rosters. The purpose of this is so that we can see and model scenarios close to what the FO and SP are doing. Btw: this is real long with tons of actual data. If you want my early crisis observations, just view the Summary.

Here's Some Scary Facts that Jumped Off the Page for Me (SUMMARY)

2020 and 2021 Summary
- We have 17 Starters who will be FAs in 2020 and 2021 plus 9 Key Rotational Players

Players
2020 -A.J. Klein (2017-2019) Andrus Peat (2015-2019) Austin Carr (2017-2019) Cameron Tom (2019-2019) Colton Jumper (2019-2019) D.J. Swearinger (2019-2019) David Onyemata (2016-2019) Drew Brees (2018-2019) Dwayne Washington (2018-2019) Eli Apple (2016-2019) J.T. Gray (2019-2019) Johnson Bademosi (2019-2019) Josh Martin (2019-2019) Justin Hardee (2019-2019) Keith Kirkwood (2018-2019) Manti Te'o (2019-2019) Noah Spence (2019-2019) P.J. Williams (2019-2019) Patrick Omameh (2019-2019) Stephone Anthony (2019-2019) Taysom Hill (2017-2019) Ted Ginn Jr. (2017-2019) Teddy Bridgewater (2019-2019) Vonn Bell (2016-2019) Zach Line (2018-2019) Zach Wood (2019-2019), 2021 Alex Anzalone (2017-2020) Avlvin Kamara (2017-2020) Cole Wick (2020-2020) Craig Robertson (2019-2020) Demario Davis (2018-2020) Garrett Griffin (2019-2020) Janoris Jenkins (2016-2020) Jared Cook (2019-2020) Jason Vander Laan (2019-2020) Kiko Alonso (2017-2020) Krishawn Hogan (2019-2020) Larry Warford (2017-2020) Lil’jordan Humphrey (2019-2020) Marcus Williams (2017-2020) Mario Edwards (2019-2020) Maurice Harris (2020-2020) Ricky Ortiz (2020-2020) Sheldon Rankins (2016-2020) Taylor Stallworth (2019-2020) Trey Hendrickson (2017-2020)

- We need to reduce the current 2020 estimated cap by $68 million this year and nearly $50 million more next year

- As far as potential talent loss, this year is bad. Next year looks tragic for talent loss of key and star players

- And there's no Money left for any FAs


2020 FAs
- 8 more starters become FAs and 5 more key Rotational players are FAs including: Klein, Peat, Onyemata, Brees, Apple, T Hill, Ginn, V Bell and Line

- If we reduce the $68,000,000 required this year

- There's no money for new Free Agents

2021 FAs
- 9 more starters become FAs and 4 more key rotational players including: Anzalone, Kamara, Robertson, Demario Davis, Janoris Jenkins, Jared Cook, Alonso, Warford, Marcus Williams, Mario Edwards, Rankins, Stallworth and Hendrickson.

- If we reduce the $68,000,000 required this year, we need to reduce another $50 plus million in 2021

- There's no money for new Free Agents

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Assumptions and Notes

1) I made some estimates on cap hit costs if we keep players. idk this stuff so would like those who do to really step on for all of you to have this tool to see what you think it will look like and the moves they will have to make
2) The real Google Sheet is Color-coded and mathematically interactive. So if you delete a player, it reduces that from the project cap for that year. 2020 FAs and 2021 FAs are color coded in yellow, Starter in Yellow also. Top rotational players in light green and meh players with no color coding
3) In the real Google Sheet, it's like a game. When you delete a player, his cap hit gets deleted from the total cap hit. The Projected actual Cap for 2020 and 2021 are conditionally formatted so that anything above the Projected actual Caps are in Red cell until you delete enough players, or you can even restructure the numbers for Loomis type moves. When the user modified cap goes below the Projected actual Cap, the cell turns white

HELP PLEASE - Is there a way to embed an actual live Google Sheet into a SSF entry? If so, I can either follow instructions or PM you the live sheet.

Here's some frightening numbers and players at risk discovered in a few minutes of playing with the live Sheet. The one I pasted in below from Google Sheet is not mathematically active or color coded, but you can all see the basic numbers and players

Again, please keep in mind for future contracts I just guessed my best and my best at legit numbers for future player contracts is not awe inspiring for accuracy - lol

Here's Some Scary Facts that Jumped Off the Page for Me

2020 and 2021 Summary
- We have 17 Starters who will be FAs in 2020 and 2021 plus 9 Key Rotational Players

Players (Starters in Red font, key Rotational players in Blue font)
2020 -A.J. Klein (2017-2019) Andrus Peat (2015-2019) Austin Carr (2017-2019) Cameron Tom (2019-2019) Colton Jumper (2019-2019) D.J. Swearinger (2019-2019) David Onyemata (2016-2019) Drew Brees (2018-2019) Dwayne Washington (2018-2019) Eli Apple (2016-2019) J.T. Gray (2019-2019) Johnson Bademosi (2019-2019) Josh Martin (2019-2019) Justin Hardee (2019-2019) Keith Kirkwood (2018-2019) Manti Te'o (2019-2019) Noah Spence (2019-2019) P.J. Williams (2019-2019) Patrick Omameh (2019-2019) Stephone Anthony (2019-2019) Taysom Hill (2017-2019) Ted Ginn Jr. (2017-2019) Teddy Bridgewater (2019-2019) Vonn Bell (2016-2019) Zach Line (2018-2019) Zach Wood (2019-2019), 2021 Alex Anzalone (2017-2020) Avlvin Kamara (2017-2020) Cole Wick (2020-2020) Craig Robertson (2019-2020) Demario Davis (2018-2020) Garrett Griffin (2019-2020) Janoris Jenkins (2016-2020) Jared Cook (2019-2020) Jason Vander Laan (2019-2020) Kiko Alonso (2017-2020) Krishawn Hogan (2019-2020) Larry Warford (2017-2020) Lil’jordan Humphrey (2019-2020) Marcus Williams (2017-2020) Mario Edwards (2019-2020) Maurice Harris (2020-2020) Ricky Ortiz (2020-2020) Sheldon Rankins (2016-2020) Taylor Stallworth (2019-2020) Trey Hendrickson (2017-2020)

- We need to reduce the current 2020 estimated cap by $68 million this year and nearly $50 million more next year

- As far as potential talent loss, this year is bad. Next year looks tragic for talent loss of key and star players

- And there's no Money left for any FAs


2020 FAs
- 8 more starters become FAs and 5 more key Rotational players are FAs including: Klein, Peat, Onyemata, Brees, Apple, T Hill, Ginn, V Bell and Line

- If we reduce the $68,000,000 required this year

- There's no money for new Free Agents



2021 FAs
- 9 more starters become FAs and 4 more key rotational players are FAs

- If we reduce the $68,000,000 required this year, we need to reduce another $50 plus million in 2021

- There's no money for new Free Agents

- We have 8 2020 FA starters and 5 Rotational Starters and many are stars, then top players and solid players including: Anzalone, Kamara, Robertson, Demario Davis, Janoris Jenkins, Jared Cook, Alonso, Warford, Marcus Williams, Mario Edwards, Rankins, Stallworth and Hendrickson.



Note: Had to delete the full spreadsheet. It was too big for the post

I love ya Swim, but I must say this post was a tad bit dramatic.

Some of these guys need to be replaced anyway, other then that Loomis knows what hes doing.

I have never seen someone exploit the Salary Cap like he can. The Saints will resign who they want, and they will upgrade who they want.

I also think the Saints know how important this draft is for the franchise. If we want to keep this boat rocking, its important we have another successful draft, and I wouldn't trust anyone else as much as I trust Jeff Ireland. We are gonna be fine, and the guys that we absolutely need to come back, will be back, and if not we will replace them. I trust this front office, they have given me no reason not too.

Love ya Swim and I appreciate the effort you put in this post, you always give us something to talk about. One of the best!

 

[Swimmer]

I love ya Swim, but I must say this post was a tad bit dramatic.

Some of these guys need to be replaced anyway, other then that Loomis knows what hes doing.

I have never seen someone exploit the Salary Cap like he can. The Saints will resign who they want, and they will upgrade who they want.

I also think the Saints know how important this draft is for the franchise. If we want to keep this boat rocking, its important we have another successful draft, and I wouldn't trust anyone else as much as I trust Jeff Ireland. We are gonna be fine, and the guys that we absolutely need to come back, will be back, and if not we will replace them. I trust this front office, they have given me no reason not too.

Love ya Swim and I appreciate the effort you put in this post, you always give us something to talk about. One of the best!

Thanks so much for the kind words Swag. Even though I run a small software company, big data workforce analytics, I still do some data analytics - not that good lol. When I loaded the data from Sportrac into a spreadsheet and analyzed it closely, it was frightening. The numbers are real scary. BayArea Saint did a great reply on this thread on how Loomis could manipulate the numbers to field a good team this year.

That said, just 4-5 years ago when we were severely cap limited from all the dead money form the expensive "bust" FA signings, we are facing a major day of reckoning and I see virtually no way to keep a number of our key young stars next year. The contracts for Ram and Latt akone will be big. Between this year and next, 17 of our current starters plus 6-8 of our key rotational players either are or will FAs by 2021. That's a lot of top talent to go FA in a 2-year period.

My purpose in this spreadsheet was to see if we could keep most or all of our young stars or would we have to let some walk or trade them. If this is true, I thought it would lend to Coach Pete's stories of SP telling Loomis to get Burrow at near any cost using the talent we are going to lose in the Burrow offer, and if we got him, the Saints were planning a major rebuild, not retool.