salary cap hell! (1 Viewer)

[Yingers]

Besides QB, the Saints haven’t desired a prime free agent in at least a decade while they’ve already invested a 1st-2nd round pick at the position in the most recent drafts.

Saints can absolutely sign any FA who they want to clear cap space for. They’ve shown that they can by signing Mathieu and Carr to big $ at important positions while beginning the offseasons in deep negative cap.

There’s a difference in not wanting the Saints to restructure players because of high negative cap space to begin offseasons. Versus making it seem like the Saints can’t make moves due to restructures simply because we don’t like the restructures pushing salary into the future.

They can clear space at any time for anyone they want if they haven’t invested day 1-2 picks into the positions.

I don’t think you get what we are saying, yes the Saints signed Carr to big money contract. And now it looks like they will restructure his contract. Let’s say that Carr bombs, stinks it up or the Saints just decide he is not their future, do you think we would be able to release or trade him after next season? The answer is no, if he is restructured. The cap money kicked down the road would be too large to deal with in one fiscal year. Can we trade him? Again no, for the same reason. The money you pay a player today in the form of a signing bonus and spread throughout the contract, will be due at some point. It just a bad way to run a franchise long term. You’re handcuffing your franchise and you have to be right on all those players being what you expect (Mike Thomas). I would guess the Saints are 4 or 5 years away from being a legit contender with our “cap hell” if they draft well. So you’re looking at the 2028 or 2029 season. And every year they play the restructure game it delays us another year. You’re just delaying the inevitable.

We need to get out of these bad contracts/restructures. Purge the older players. We won’t be contenders during this process anyway. Save draft capital and draft well.

 

[Elvis]

Thats incorrect that there’s roster moves the Saints cannot make. If the Saints needed to cut Taysom, like they will with Michael Thomas, they could post-June 1 release him. They don’t have to because Taysom’s still a very productive player benefiting the team.

When the Saints wanted to land a short term franchise QB, they cleared the space to land Carr on a significant contract.

When they needed to replace Jenkins and Williams at the Safety positions, they made the room to sign two above average-great starters in Mathieu and Maye at significant salaries.

Ramczyk’s cap situation just recently developed as a major issue. And the Saints appear to intend on replacing Ramczyk with either the #14 or #45 picks. The dead cap eventually fades off of the books once he retires. Dead cap and high cap hits comes with extending players who performed at an all-pro level or very high level at the time of their contract extensions. They’re either extended or the team goes through musical chairs at the positions with lesser players.

The Saints can sign a starting OL or pass rusher in FA if necessary. They’ve proven that they’re able to make cap room for any of their intended roster moves at any time.

You are limited to two post-June 1 transactions per year. That limits them.

Carr's cap number was $7.2 million in 2024 and now we have to deal with it because his 2025 cap number is $35.7 million. Mathieu and Maye were both less than $3.5 million on the first year cap and are ballooning now. Maye, who we don't need anymore, will cost $8.4 million in dead money to cut because of 3 void years because most of his contract was more guaranteed prorated bonuses than salary. If Ram were to retire tomorrow, we'd have $32 million in dead money.

Like I said, we are limited by the back loaded and constantly restructured contracts. The salaries balloon at the end and we can't cut them because if we did the void year bonuses would accelerate and cost more than another restructure.

 

[Stalwart385]

I don’t think you get what we are saying, yes the Saints signed Carr to big money contract. And now it looks like they will restructure his contract. Let’s say that Carr bombs, stinks it up or the Saints just decide he is not their future, do you think we would be able to release or trade him after next season? The answer is no, if he is restructured. The cap money kicked down the road would be too large to deal with in one fiscal year. Can we trade him? Again no, for the same reason. The money you pay a player today in the form of a signing bonus and spread throughout the contract, will be due at some point. It just a bad way to run a franchise long term. You’re handcuffing your franchise and you have to be right on all those players being what you expect (Mike Thomas). I would guess the Saints are 4 or 5 years away from being a legit contender with our “cap hell” if they draft well. So you’re looking at the 2028 or 2029 season. And every year they play the restructure game it delays us another year. You’re just delaying the inevitable.

We need to get out of these bad contracts/restructures. Purge the older players. We won’t be contenders during this process anyway. Save draft capital and draft well.

When it's due, you push back the current young contracts. It can be done perpetually. There isn't an inevitable payday. It's actually more efficient to push the money back. There isn't an interest rate, and the cap goes up every year. It's smart money for managing the cap. They need to back off some so they have more flexibility year to year and they don't have to restructure the whole team. I think they will once some of those covid contracts clear. But it's not a doomed strategy overall, it's a good one.

 

[donato]

When it's due, you push back the current young contracts. It can be done perpetually. There isn't an inevitable payday. It's actually more efficient to push the money back. There isn't an interest rate, and the cap goes up every year. It's smart money for managing the cap. They need to back off some so they have more flexibility year to year and they don't have to restructure the whole team. I think they will once some of those covid contracts clear. But it's not a doomed strategy overall, it's a good one.

It's a terrible strategy when you have an older, slightly above average roster with a mediocre non-franchise Qb. There's zero reason to keep doing it in our current situation.

 

[Stalwart385]

It's a terrible strategy when you have an older, slightly above average roster with a mediocre non-franchise Qb. There's zero reason to keep doing it in our current situation.

If you are of the opinion we should gut the team and all our player contracts are bad I can't see eye-to-eye with that argument. You have to look at it over the life of the contract, not in the instance of 1 year. The older player's contracts will eventually ballon but that is when Olave or someone else's new contract is only accounting for like 1% of the cap, because they push that one back too. Over the life of those contracts, they have less impact on the cap by pushing them back.

 

[BarBar]

Cap hell isn't a myth because what people mean by cap hell isn't defined. Getting under the cap isn't the question. We always do that. We may even be able to sign a player or two to back loaded contracts. So if by cap hell you mean we can't get under the cap, then we're not in cap hell.

To me cap hell means that our roster is limited by how we manage the cap. How many of those players you listed do you really want to restructure or re-sign? For me, it would only be McCoy and Granderson and maybe Ruiz. The rest I don't want to push more money out to get bitten by their drop-offs or retirements and not be able to move off of them because of the cap. The jury is out on Carr and you certainly don't want to guarantee him more money. Ramczyk has a major knee condition and I wouldn't want to guarantee him more either. Demario and Cam are really old for their positions and are near retirement. AK is approaching RB dropoff age and Taysom is already beyond it. We will be sitting on dead money for those players beyond their playing years because we are running out of younger players to restructure.

So what you consider cap hell and what I consider cap hell are quite different.

This is also where I am at. Half of those players we should move on from but we can't because we have to kick the can down the road just to get under the cap. Borrowing from future years is like buying everything on a credit card even though you can't afford it.

It basically forces you to restructure and retain players way beyond their prime years. I would love to see the team clear out of these deals and move towards a different strategy.....but probably won't happen as Loomis doesn't see it as a problem.

 

[saint_drago]

Funny how people can look at a situation and see it different ways. Even when the situation is pretty clear cut. Most people look at the picture and see a man riding a bike. Others see the picture and tell us that it's actually a bike with a man on top. They aren't wrong technically but they know they aren't right.

 

[Yingers70]

When it's due, you push back the current young contracts. It can be done perpetually. There isn't an inevitable payday. It's actually more efficient to push the money back. There isn't an interest rate, and the cap goes up every year. It's smart money for managing the cap. They need to back off some so they have more flexibility year to year and they don't have to restructure the whole team. I think they will once some of those covid contracts clear. But it's not a doomed strategy overall, it's a good one.

Sure you can do it perpetually, and that will perpetually handcuff our team. Yes, there is no interest rate, but you must then keep players longer than you should, which can act like an interest rate. The saying better to get rid of a player a year early than a year late, we have to keep players multiple years too late. If this was a good long term strategy other teams would be doing it too. Other teams use it as a short term strategy on occasion, but then rebalance their finances to make another run.

 

[St. Geezy]

I don’t think you get what we are saying, yes the Saints signed Carr to big money contract. And now it looks like they will restructure his contract. Let’s say that Carr bombs, stinks it up or the Saints just decide he is not their future, do you think we would be able to release or trade him after next season? The answer is no, if he is restructured. The cap money kicked down the road would be too large to deal with in one fiscal year. Can we trade him? Again no, for the same reason. The money you pay a player today in the form of a signing bonus and spread throughout the contract, will be due at some point. It just a bad way to run a franchise long term. You’re handcuffing your franchise and you have to be right on all those players being what you expect (Mike Thomas). I would guess the Saints are 4 or 5 years away from being a legit contender with our “cap hell” if they draft well. So you’re looking at the 2028 or 2029 season. And every year they play the restructure game it delays us another year. You’re just delaying the inevitable.

We need to get out of these bad contracts/restructures. Purge the older players. We won’t be contenders during this process anyway. Save draft capital and draft well.

You are limited to two post-June 1 transactions per year. That limits them.

Carr's cap number was $7.2 million in 2024 and now we have to deal with it because his 2025 cap number is $35.7 million. Mathieu and Maye were both less than $3.5 million on the first year cap and are ballooning now. Maye, who we don't need anymore, will cost $8.4 million in dead money to cut because of 3 void years because most of his contract was more guaranteed prorated bonuses than salary. If Ram were to retire tomorrow, we'd have $32 million in dead money.

Like I said, we are limited by the back loaded and constantly restructured contracts. The salaries balloon at the end and we can't cut them because if we did the void year bonuses would accelerate and cost more than another restructure.

What teams are signing big money QBs or a player at any position to a big money long term deal and cutting them after one year?

The only reason this seems like a Saints problem is because we intentionally structured his deal this way so that we could afford him.

Teams not in our position are signing them to deals with more upfront money, and it would be just as cost prohibitive for them to cut the player also, especially if they want to maintain having a so-called “good” cap situation.

Too many people act like the Saints are the only team facing these issues and like if we did things the traditional way, the same problems wouldn’t exist just in a different form.

Our main problem has been WHO we are giving our money to and who we are drafting, not our finances.

You guys just can’t see that we are doing the same thing with similar restrictions as everyone else, just using future cash rather than present cash.

You get too big-eyed when seeing the fat negative on OTC at the beginning of each off-season. That’s Monopoly money figures, fake, and OTC has no clue what the team has planned already to remedy it, literally EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

If us signing the league’s highest paid free agent last year despite going into the off-season under similar circumstances wasn’t proof enough to you, then I don’t know what else to say.

We are not the only team stuck in bad contracts, we are not the only team with assets we can’t trade, and we are not the only team that sees free agents sign elsewhere. We are doing the same thing as everyone, just in a different, more complex form.

 

[ASaintFerLife]

saints need to get out of this salary cap situation. projected @ -83 million for 2024. time to trade down and gather as many picks as possible. yeah you might not get all the best picks in the draft,but you could get a lot of good players that could help this team and lower your cap hinderance. it's the only way that this team gets better. 7-9 and 9 -8 teams speak volumes about it's mediocrity. would be nice to see this team with cap space above a negative number. i think the winnow model has not worked. time to try a new strategy. get younger, get faster, and get smarter.

We all know, and nothing we can do about it.

 

[ASaintFerLife]

saints need to get out of this salary cap situation. projected @ -83 million for 2024. time to trade down and gather as many picks as possible. yeah you might not get all the best picks in the draft,but you could get a lot of good players that could help this team and lower your cap hinderance. it's the only way that this team gets better. 7-9 and 9 -8 teams speak volumes about it's mediocrity. would be nice to see this team with cap space above a negative number. i think the winnow model has not worked. time to try a new strategy. get younger, get faster, and get smarter.

Also we really won't be in cap hades as long as the cap keeps growing year over year. When that stops, then we have a fire sale. Until then march on with selling the future for today.

Or if Loomis leaves then it might be time for a selloff and reset.

 

[St. Geezy]

Also we really won't be in cap hades as long as the cap keeps growing year over year. When that stops, then we have a fire sale. Until then march on with selling the future for today.

Or if Loomis leaves then it might be time for a selloff and reset.

This is the key point everyone misses…the gigantic cap leaps are there and can be taken advantage of.

Everyone likes to cite the fact that we are the only team operating this way, but what they don’t also recognize is that we are the only team with a man from the league’s finance office who was in charge of approving player contracts as our cap guy.

He knows all of the tricks and I trust that he knows the best way to go about handling a football team’s ledger.

We are not a .500 team because of our cap situation. We just really suck at player evaluations lately.

 

[lilvipa221]

Thats incorrect that there’s roster moves the Saints cannot make. If the Saints needed to cut Taysom, like they will with Michael Thomas, they could post-June 1 release him. They don’t have to because Taysom’s still a very productive player benefiting the team.

When the Saints wanted to land a short term franchise QB, they cleared the space to land Carr on a significant contract.

When they needed to replace Jenkins and Williams at the Safety positions, they made the room to sign two above average-great starters in Mathieu and Maye at significant salaries.

Ramczyk’s cap situation just recently developed as a major issue. And the Saints appear to intend on replacing Ramczyk with either the #14 or #45 picks. The dead cap eventually fades off of the books once he retires. Dead cap and high cap hits comes with extending players who performed at an all-pro level or very high level at the time of their contract extensions. They’re either extended or the team goes through musical chairs at the positions with lesser players.

The Saints can sign a starting OL or pass rusher in FA if necessary. They’ve proven that they’re able to make cap room for any of their intended roster moves at any time.

I hate the argument that we are in this situation because that is the cost of keeping all-pro players. That is just incorrect.

We had two pro-bowlers that made the team as replacements. We are not in this situation because we have a supremely talented roster which is why this method is dumb.

We are in this situation because of mismanagement during the Brees era that they tried to correct but it snowballed into out of control territory.

We are in cap hell because we are average/below average and everyone else in the league has more flexability than us to get better. Regardless of how you feel about doing it when you have the worst cap situation in the league it limits you the most.

 

[lilvipa221]

Also we really won't be in cap hades as long as the cap keeps growing year over year. When that stops, then we have a fire sale. Until then march on with selling the future for today.

Or if Loomis leaves then it might be time for a selloff and reset.

False line of thinking, the cap wont fade away because the cap keeps going up. Salaries go up more than the increase every year so the cost of keeping the same roster goes up which will not let us ever catch up. Our debt only goes up because if you aren't improving then you are getting worse so it has to keep going just to stay neutral.

 

[lilvipa221]

I mean to maintain being a good team in general. Whether it’s current or to return to a good team the following season or two.

I think we would have a “cap problem” even if the team’s stars were mostly younger with contract extensions. If Hendrickson and Williams were re-signed while they were 26 and 27 at the time of their FA, we would still continue to restructure contracts to clear cap space in the future. There’s a great player or two from every Saints draft since 2016 who are due for big contracts which runs up the future cap and puts the team in position to constantly restructure.

At some point, the older players will come off the books. Playing at a high level at the end of their careers makes it seem like their contract’s high cap hits will never end. The team always has a plan in place to clear space to make any move they want to make.

You just proved the argument that we are in cap hell.

We have to sign older/worse players to replace these young players that we cannot resign and it is not because we are littered with tons of all-pros on the team. This method makes you older, slower and forces you to not be able to pivot quickly to improve the team if a great opportunity comes around. We have to overpay average players and win 7-9 games with the worst cap situation in the NFL.

The Falcons will go get Kirk Cousins or Russel Wilson and win the division next season leaving us holding a bunch of debt and 0 playoff appearances to show for it.