Saints Cap Moves: 3 restructures, 1 release; cap space is at -$6,987,537 (225 Viewers)

[No2DC]

Carr is essentially on a 1 year deal. Saints will have $9,537,000 cap savings when he’s probably released at the start of the 2026 offseason. Kellen Moore likely drafts his own young franchise QB in the 1st round by year 2. In the meantime, he’ll compete in his first HC year with a proven vet QB while not being significantly trapped to Carr’s cap hits beyond 2025.

Its not a bad outcome to keep a proven 4k yard-65% vet passer for a year. Kellen’s staff should win a minimum 9-10 games in the NFCS in year 1 as long as Carr is healthy.

I agree with the part, the second statement is pure speculation for a first-time HC, and health is always unknown.

 

[texasjefe]

Gotta love how everyone just automatically projects their own thoughts on Carr into the mind of Kellen Moore. It’s like completely illogical for some people to fathom that the idea that the guy is being genuine about his feelings for the guy.

I don't know anymore than you do, it's just that Carr's money is the elephant in the room, which means there may be fire from the smoke I smell. Carr's career ceiling is pretty established. Maybe as you and others say, Moore wants Carr, and the roster decision is all football, and not business. I just disagree. They're in cap trouble and they are finally taking steps to dig out of it.

Let me ask you this. How good of a season (wins, stats, chemistry) would Derek Carr have to have for the Saints to consider, not letting him walk and extending him to 2027 or further?

Let's say the Saints do not draft a QB next month in their top 2 picks. Let's say Derek gets the Saints to the wild card but loses? What might you do then, Mr. GM?

 

[Saintaholik]

We went through 2 coordinators with Williams. Even with injuries, the coordinators didn't care for him. The biggest waste of money in the Allen Era.

I wouldn’t necessarily say the biggest waste of money.
He wasn’t being paid that much.

Biggest waste would be someone like Junior Gallette, or Nick Fairley, or most likely Jarius Byrd

Those sucked, but yeah Jamal did nothing here

 

[St. Geezy]

I don't know anymore than you do, it's just that Carr's money is the elephant in the room, which means there may be fire from the smoke I smell. Carr's career ceiling is pretty established. Maybe as you and others say, Moore wants Carr, and the roster decision is all football, and not business. I just disagree. They're in cap trouble and they are finally taking steps to dig out of it.

Let me ask you this. How good of a season (wins, stats, chemistry) would Derek Carr have to have for the Saints to consider, not letting him walk and extending him to 2027 or further?

Let's say the Saints do not draft a QB next month in their top 2 picks. Let's say Derek gets the Saints to the wild card but loses? What might you do then, Mr. GM?

I tend to take people at their word when they speak, and Moore has heaped nothing but praise towards the guy, and we are moving forward with him.

To me, that's some borderline narcissistic stuff to think "Oh, there's no way I am wrong on this so yeah, this grown man and NFL head coach that has poured over film in detail I can not even begin to fathom or comprehend has to be thinking exactly like I am and is lying, so see, I'm right."

I don't know the answer to those questions and not really interested in going down that road of hypotheticals. All I know is what is in front of me, what our new head coach has said and done on the matter, and will let the season play out.

 

[MikeyF]

Doesn’t address part of the point I made, which I’ve seen made frequently here, that point being that it is good to be loyal to players who have endeared themselves to the city, culture, and community of New Orleans. It’s different here and those guys do deserve to finish the contracts they’ve earned here. I don’t wanna see Kamara as a Packer or Cam as a Titan or Demario as a Steeler.

You can't win football games without having the best & most talented players that you can put on the field.
Unfortunately father time has caught up with these guys.
You can either be loyal to these players & lose games because you have the 2nd worst defense in the NFL or you can go with younger players.

I'm older than you so I saw the best player the Saints ever had on Defense go & win a Super Bowl with the hated San Francisco 49ers.
It is just what you have to do if you want to win games consistently.

You can be loyal to these guys by giving them jobs after they retire from playing their last year or two with other teams...

 

[soggymoss84]

If Carr wanted out, he could have forced it really easily and done things to make it work under the Saints cap. It's not like Carr cares about bad press. If he did, he would stop acting like Derek Carr.

True, but he knew the Raiders were going to cut him so he would be a free agent. So anything he did would be to the Raiders advantage and not his. Here he knew that the Saints were not going to cut him due to the cap hit and Moore wanting him to stay. But, there could have been some advantages to him if he could get another team to give him a longer term contract with more or the same money. Geno Smith is reportedly about to get $40 or $45 million per year from the Raiders. That probably boosted what he would take to stay with the Saints or what he would have needed to see in a contract with another team before he would do things to make a cut or trade feasible.

So, if he really wanted out, he would have had to demand a trade and likely restructure to make it work under the cap. But, he did neither of those. I suspect the truth of it was that he would have considered a trade if the Saints proposed one and he wanted to have permission to gage what kind of contract he would get, but was also unwilling to change his contract to make a trade or cut feasible for the Saints. So, I'm sure he was interested in other options, but he wasn't so interested that he was willing to do things to make a cut or a trade happen.

I also suspect that in the end Carr realized that no team was going to be willing to pay him what the Saints were paying him and since the Saints were not going to cut him, he would hold his ground. It's all about the money for Carr, as it should be, so it's not so much that he wants to be here, it's that he likes the contract he has here and isn't going to change it.

Yeah if Carr truly wanted out he could have helped Saints cap so he could get cut and still make ten million dollars, just by simply going to Loomis and saying “I want yall to cut me, to make it easier on you to eat the cal hit and designate me a June 1 cut I would be willing to lower my 2025 salary to league minimum if you’d be willing to take off the offset clause in my 10 million roster bonus”

Loomis would have had to take that deal IMO

 

[texasjefe]

I tend to take people at their word when they speak, and Moore has heaped nothing but praise towards the guy, and we are moving forward with him.

Or, Kellen knew from the interviews and his agent that there was good probability that Carr was going to be restructured. It would have been a tough choice to eat the dead cap in this season. So, Kellen is immediately doing his job, coaching up a player who will need a lot of ego-stroking to turn the page.

 

[St. Geezy]

Or, Kellen knew from the interviews and his agent that there was good probability that Carr was going to be restructured. It would have been a tough choice to eat the dead cap in this season. So, Kellen is immediately doing his job, coaching up a player who will need a lot of ego-stroking to turn the page.

Tell yourself whatever you have to tell yourself to hold onto the hope that you were right all along, even if that includes believing our new head coach is being manipulated and is lying.

All I know is that if the team had decided to go against my own wishes and moved on from Carr, I wouldn’t be on here complaining about it all day every day like some.

Learn to cope and move forward with ways we can fix the team based on the framework that’s being laid out.

This is entertainment…watch it, follow it, critique it if you must, but don’t act like you know what’s best and scream it to the ceiling every time the team’s philosophy doesn’t flow with how you and all your GM and coaching experience would build a team. We aren’t GMs and complaining endlessly isn’t going to change anything.

What’s the point of being a fan if you’re just going to be mad at every single thing the team does at this point? You know we aren’t going forward with the vision you and others had, so find a way to cope.

Just my advice.

 

[oodank]

Gotta love how everyone just automatically projects their own thoughts on Carr into the mind of Kellen Moore. It’s like completely illogical for some people to fathom that the idea that the guy is being genuine about his feelings for the guy.

That's because they are still trying to project their own personal feelings on a resolved situation, and they are not paying attention to what is actually happening.

 

[texasjefe]

Tell yourself whatever you have to tell yourself to hold onto the hope that you were right all along, even if that includes believing our new head coach is being manipulated and is lying.

All I know is that if the team had decided to go against my own wishes and moved on from Carr, I wouldn’t be on here complaining about it all day every day like some.

Learn to cope and move forward with ways we can fix the team based on the framework that’s being laid out.

This is entertainment…watch it, follow it, critique it if you must, but don’t act like you know what’s best and scream it to the ceiling every time the team’s philosophy doesn’t flow with how you and all your GM and coaching experience would build a team. We aren’t GMs and complaining endlessly isn’t going to change anything.

What’s the point of being a fan if you’re just going to be mad at every single thing the team does at this point? You know we aren’t going forward with the vision you and others had, so find a way to cope.

Just my advice.

Come off the ledge, skippy. I'm free to speculate.

 

[Dastheat_9]

We are going to pay 50 million dollars to players not on the team, and they are going to end up paying Derek Carr 150 Million Dollars. This is just insane to me for a team with no pro-bowlers. Why didn’t we just wash it all. Start from scratch next year with these draft picks.

 

[St. Geezy]

Come off the ledge, skippy. I'm free to speculate.

If by speculate you mean “Create bizarre counter-narratives that go against what’s directly in front of me to support what I want to believe,” sure, go ahead.

 

[texasjefe]

If by speculate you mean “Create bizarre counter-narratives that go against what’s directly in front of me to support what I want to believe,” sure, go ahead.

You believe the decisions are 100% football, 100% on the level, and little to no business motivation.

I believe ..

IT'S BUSINESS SZN. Coaches lie for the good of the team and player, because a shirt-ton of money and lost time hangs in the balance..

Remember, Nick the trick said vaguely.. "they tried to do something different with Carr." What would that be? Either a paycut, an extension, a trade, or a cut.

 

[St. Geezy]

You believe the decisions are 100% football, 100% on the level, and little to no business motivation.

I believe ..

IT'S BUSINESS SZN. Coaches lie for the good of the team and player, because a shirt-ton of money and lost time hangs in the balance..

Remember, Nick the trick said vaguely.. "they tried to do something different with Carr." What would that be? Either a paycut, an extension, or a cut.

It was also reported that Carr wanted to shop his services but the team would not let him because they really are dead set on him being the guy at QB, but I guess we’ll just ignore that one and pretend it’s fake since it doesn’t flow with the desired narrative.

 

[texasjefe]

It was also reported that Carr wanted to shop his services but the team would not let him because they really are dead set on him being the guy at QB, but I guess we’ll just ignore that one and pretend it’s fake since it doesn’t flow with the desired narrative.

Reported by who?