Saints Cap Moves: Derek Carr restructured, Erik McCoy restructured; J. Williams released; cap space is at -$8,543,537 (526 Viewers)

[StudioSaint]

Straight from the article

“Although it felt like Carr himself might be interested in a change of scenery, the Saints essentially wound up exercising their contract rights with a “simple,” garden-variety contract restructure four days before the start of the new league year.”

Yeah, that's what I was referring to from the article.

I bolded the critical words in that quote. That is not the same as saying "I was told by someone that Carr wanted to leave." The author of the article admits it's what they "felt" "might be" the situation.

That is pure speculation on the author's part.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

I've heard a few people say that as a society we have lost a lot of respect for people with experience, advanced knowledge and/or expertise. I think it's true and it's significant problem. Society falls apart if too many people think they know better than the people who actually know better.

You should put that in your signature so everyone reads it at some point haha. Very well said.

 

[stooge]

Mediocrity is going to be Loomis' legacy. Payton and Brees will get all of the credit for the good years. The non-Payton Saints record under Loomis is 49-66 and I don't see that changing much while he's still with the team. We'll just have to wait him out.

“If you don’t include the best decisions he’s made then it looks like he’s only made bad decisions.”

Sound logic, chief!

 

[RaisingTheBar]

Getting a QB is a crap shoot regardless. If you think one is worth it, trade up for him. Just like the Chiefs did with Mahommes after going 12-4.

The cheifs moved up 2 spots to #10 in one of the best decisions ever by any franchise. I’d love it but unlikely a top qb falls 1-2 spots ahead of us that gives us the same scenario.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

I don’t believe the Mahomes story.

I mean….Andy Reid did.

 

[Merl]

This was a game of chicken and the Saints blinked first.

Carr's leverage was the simple fact that cutting him forces the Saints to restructure the entire rest of the team to get cap complainant and likely gives the Saints zero cap space for FA moves and would force them to field one of the worst NFL rosters of all time.

The Saint's leverage was the very real fact that on the open market Carr is not likely getting $40m a year. Not nearly as many QB opening as there are FA QBs and Carr if cut could have found himself taking an even larger pay cut.

I was pretty sure that Carr was not taking a pay cut, he is the type of guy that is always going to bet on himself. In the end he get's his $40m and the Saints are forced to kick the can again.

Playing around with the OTC calculator with a base restructure means Carr's 2026 cap hit is $69m with a dead money hit of $28 and cap saving of $32m if cut. No way the Saints are paying Carr $69M next year and if they could not find away to work out a new contract now it's likely he is gone next year. The Saints decided it was better to keep him another year and take a smaller cap hit in 2026 when they will have a little more cap space to take on the dead money.

This OTC calculator is flawed when it comes to future years and this proves it again. The dead money hit for a cut in 26 is 59.7M.

 

[Stalwart385]

The cheifs moved up 2 spots to #10 in one of the best decisions ever by any franchise. I’d love it but unlikely a top qb falls 1-2 spots ahead of us that gives us the same scenario.

The went from 27 to 10.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

A 9 to 10 win division win and playoff berth in year 1 of a program is a HUGE tone-setter that’s worth striving for.

We are trying to build something here. A good 9 to 10 win season and a possible division title is not something to turn your nose up at when trying to establish a new culture.

Context matters. You are using words like tone setter and culture… after 2025 Carr is gone and players like Cam Jordan, Demario Davis, Honeybadger are going to be extremely close to gone if not gone.

If Carr was 24 years old not on a 40mil per year contract and our defensive leaders weren’t in their mid 30s absolutely a 9-10 win team fighting for division is great for the future. But getting a 14-17 draft pick when the entire team will start to be rebuilt and leaders will be gone in 2026 makes zero sense to me. And I don’t think that’s a ridiculous view to have.

 

[WhoDat6278]

Because your statement that Brees was almost done so we needed to take a QB in the 1st was ridiculous. As evident by our record from 2017 -2020. THAT'S the point There was not a need to take a QB in the 1st at that time.
GB likes to groom their QBs so they take them late 1st rd and the jury is still out on Love. And Rodgers was not as you say " Almost Done" And the Packers situation has nothing to do with the fact that SP did not feel the need to take a QB in the 1st after 2017

Again, you’re missing the point. If you have a HOF QB you should draft another quarterback before he retires. We didn’t do that and look where we are versus the Packers who did exactly that.

Your sort of short term thinking is exactly the same as Mickey Loomis’, which is why we’re currently one of the worst teams in the NFL.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

The went from 27 to 10.

Did they not move to 12 first before going to 10? If not I def. misremembered that.

 

[StudioSaint]

You know, you've been here since 2003. Ever take the time to read the site rules? Since I can post something from the site rules (you can find that on your own) so, see this:

"Stories/articles from pay sites can be described in the posters own words and a link provided but should not be directly quoted. This will ensure we avoid having potential problems with copyright infringement."

So subscribe to read neworleans.football, or take people's words for what is on that site. If you don't want to subscribe, read what he has that is free or do without the info. But no one needs to (or even can) quote stuff behind a paywall for you.

I searched the internet at large for myself to find someone actually saying that they were told by someone within the Saints that they were asking Carr to take a paycut. I couldn't find anything. That's why I asked for other people's source on that.

I highly doubt that Nick and Triplett would be the only ones told and the only source. If Nick and Triplett are the only sources, then I doubt the credibility of their reporting.

I'm pretty sure people can quote a sentence or two from an article on a pay site. They just can't quote huge chunks of the article.

 

[StudioSaint]

What do you think Underhill means when he says there was some effort to work different things out with Carr?

Man, explaining that is pointless. If all they wanted to do was restructure Carr it's already written into his contract that they can do so.

However, in Mickey's scouting combine interview he hinted that they had to do "Something about his contract" There's literally no need to say that if the inteded plan was ever to just do a standard restructure.

It's pretty apparent they appraoched him about doing something "other" than a standard restructure and they just settled on that. If people can't come to that conclusion on their own w/ the data provided it's because they don't want to.

There are a lot of things they could have wanted to change about the contract besides just a pay cut. They could have wanted to change the length, they could have wanted to remove the no trade clause, they could have wanted to add or remove guaranteed income or bonuses, they could have wanted to add or remove incentives.

People are mistakenly assuming the only thing the Saints could have wanted was a paycut. They could have wanted several other things. Maybe they did want him to take a paycut, but we don't know that. People have just assumed that's what it was.

 

[Stalwart385]

Did they not move to 12 first before going to 10? If not I def. misremembered that.

I don't have that great a memory but I know they had a good record. The only thing I can find are articles that state this

"The Chiefs entered that draft with the 27th pick. They traded it to the Buffalo Bills — along with a third-rounder and a 2018 first-round pick — to move up to No. 10 to select Mahomes"

So seems pretty clear they traded their way up to get a QB they targeted.

 

[RaisingTheBar]

I don't have that great a memory but I know they had a good record. The only thing I can find are articles that state this



So seems pretty clear they traded their way up to get a QB they targeted.

They for sure did and jump us I just didn’t remember them coming all the way from 27.

 

[Elvis]

“If you don’t include the best decisions he’s made then it looks like he’s only made bad decisions.”

Sound logic, chief!

A broken clock is right twice a day. Loomis isn't that accurate.