Saints are $61M over the cap for 2022, but... (1 Viewer)

[Dan in Lafayette]

No matter how you look at it, our cap management hasn’t been great. Look at where we are over the next 2-3 seasons. We are near the bottom every single season. It’s hard to get any free agents when you’re always trying to make room. Some teams just have room built into their plans and some are good teams.

The 2021 cap cutback because of lost revenue in 2020 due to Covid was not Mickey's fault. He's a good GM but we can hardly expect him to predict pandemics.

 

[Merl]

Yeah the big break will come in 2023. Get through next year, hopefully draft exceptionally well, and find a QB. 2023 we should have the potential to be back deep in the playoffs

I don't think the 2023 cap increase will be any more than $25Mish.

 

[RaginCajun83]

That’s a Loomis problem and luckily the Saints have one of the best to pull it off

 

[onanygivensunday]

We are always near the bottom of the leagues in cap space and the covid year made that exponentially worse. But we are still always near the bottom even without it.

because... MIckey restructures a LOT of contracts before they expire, saving cap space near term (i.e., this year) by converting salary to bonuses, which pushes money to future years resulting in dead money when the aging player is cut because they're not worth their cap hit.

It's a never-ending cycle. It's just the Loomis way.

 

[saintsfan78]

It appears that Loomis may find the going a big easier whittling down the $61 million than the $101 million he had to deal with for 2021. But it still won't be easy.

Saints $61M over projected 2022 NFL salary cap, here’s how they get under

No team is over the 2022 NFL salary cap ceiling higher than the Saints, but their road map to getting under it is simpler than years past:

www.yahoo.com

We are paying for trying to extend the Brees years by putting high priced players around him. hey those for great years but I knew the balloons would bust sometime.

 

[Bill]

We are paying for trying to extend the Brees years by putting high priced players around him. hey those for great years but I knew the balloons would bust sometime.

We all knew it. But we would certainly have felt that it was worth it had we avoided those playoff disappointments and grabbed another Lombardi (or two).
It was a gamble that we lost and we're having to drop back and punt the next few seasons away. All we can hope now is to find a few good draft picks to get us back to competing for some important free agents soon. We can't throw every dollar we have to spend at just one player. We have a few holes to fill.

 

[Goatman Saint]

I’m going to reply to myself because I think it adds some perspective.

The article posted by the OP talks a lot about restructures but not about those restructures implications on future years. Did any of you know that Michael Thomas, Cam Jordan, Lattimore, Ramczyk, Andrus Peat and AK ALREADY account for around $114 in cap space for 2023? Those are the very contracts the article is talking about restructuring and some of that money would be hitting the books as early as the following year. It is already about half of the projected cap for 6 players and none of those 6 players is a QB, and people are talking like Loomis can just kick that money down the road without implications. I can’t see a scenario where the additional cap hit for those players isn’t at least $25 million in 2023 leaving us with nearly $140 million for 6 players out of the currently projected $218 million cap. That would leave $78 million for 47 additional players, including a QB In 2023.

When I read threads about “Why did we do that Taysom contract?” or “Let’s go after Wilson or Rodgers next year”, I always go back to what our cap looks like and it all makes sense why we aren’t getting a top tier QB and are signing stupid contracts at times when production doesn’t justify it. The cap is really messed up. And I don’t want to hear about how the pandemic messed Loomis up. This roster was being mismanaged before that happened.

But, there will be some high paid talent which will be gone by then also. Brees dead money is gone, and the big contracts have already come. No one who is coming up the next couple years is worth what the core is getting paid now. Winston will be reasonable next year, and who knows. If Book gets it there’s more open space. Drafting well is essential though

 

[Sailorsaint]

Which of these high paid players are you talking about? The ones that we have to restructure again to get under the cap? When we restructure those players, we won’t be able to trade them or cut them without absorbing their bonuses as dead money. Brees’ contract isn’t even a fraction of the problem. PJ and Marcus Williams will both likely be gone if they hit free agency. We’ll probably have to cut Roby and Jenkins to get under the cap. We’ll be stuck signing players that everyone else passed on and that’s about it.

I'm afraid that our defense will suffer in our attempt to upgrade the offense.