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Fairly often, it's proposed in this space that the Saints should summarily move on from one player or another. Often, it's proposed that the team move on from one of the team's stars that carries a large cap hit.
The way NFL contracts are structured these days, there usually is a sweet spot in time where a player can be cut to reclaim some cap space. Before that sweet spot, though, most modern contracts make cutting or trading a player untenable due to the cap hit.
For the purposes of online discussion, there is a handy way to check online the fallout from a given roster move. That way is the website Spotrac.com.
Just to get the lay of the land a bit ... let's look at the top 15 or so cap hits (not salaries) on the 2022 Saints, followed by a summary of the 2022 Saints overall cap situation:
OK, so a couple of things to note:
1) To determine the cap hit of cutting or trading a player, take the amount in the Cap Hit column and deduct the Dead Cap amount (all figures in parentheses are negative numbers). So for example, if the Saints had cut Cameron Jordan during the summer, we'd deduct his 2022 Dead Cap of $34.3 million from his 2022 Cap Hit of $12.4 million to yield a $21.9 million 2022 cap hit -- IOW, it would have cost the Saints almost $22 million in 2022 cap space to move on from Jordan before this season.
2) Current players on IR and past players' Dead Money count against the current cap. Against 2022's cap, Terron Armstead, Drew Brees, and Malcom Jenkins account for about 70% of that $42.6 million in Dead Money. And the reason you don't see Michael Thomas' $13 million cap hit on the player list above is because he tops the the next section, Injured Reserve Cap.
3) Combining the Active Player list above, and Injured Reserve players, the 2022 Saints only have two 2022 opening-day players with a cap hit over $10 million. Check out the looming 2023 situation in the next post.
The way NFL contracts are structured these days, there usually is a sweet spot in time where a player can be cut to reclaim some cap space. Before that sweet spot, though, most modern contracts make cutting or trading a player untenable due to the cap hit.
For the purposes of online discussion, there is a handy way to check online the fallout from a given roster move. That way is the website Spotrac.com.
Just to get the lay of the land a bit ... let's look at the top 15 or so cap hits (not salaries) on the 2022 Saints, followed by a summary of the 2022 Saints overall cap situation:
OK, so a couple of things to note:
1) To determine the cap hit of cutting or trading a player, take the amount in the Cap Hit column and deduct the Dead Cap amount (all figures in parentheses are negative numbers). So for example, if the Saints had cut Cameron Jordan during the summer, we'd deduct his 2022 Dead Cap of $34.3 million from his 2022 Cap Hit of $12.4 million to yield a $21.9 million 2022 cap hit -- IOW, it would have cost the Saints almost $22 million in 2022 cap space to move on from Jordan before this season.
2) Current players on IR and past players' Dead Money count against the current cap. Against 2022's cap, Terron Armstead, Drew Brees, and Malcom Jenkins account for about 70% of that $42.6 million in Dead Money. And the reason you don't see Michael Thomas' $13 million cap hit on the player list above is because he tops the the next section, Injured Reserve Cap.
3) Combining the Active Player list above, and Injured Reserve players, the 2022 Saints only have two 2022 opening-day players with a cap hit over $10 million. Check out the looming 2023 situation in the next post.
