Speculation State of the team (1 Viewer)

[tjharris]

Am I the only person who viewed this season from the very start as a rebuilding season? The team has exceeded my expectations when things have gelled and I’m under no illusion (*cough* delusion) that this a Super Bowl quality team.

I had low expectations as well but seeing Jameis' improvement and how well the defense was playing early on. I thought we could win the division and make some noise in the playoffs. But this team isn't deep at all and injuries have brought us down to below my offseason expectations.

 

[tjharris]

Ok if we are being honest this year is beginning to feel a bit like the end of the Haslett(sp) era. What really scares me is if we don’t show major improvement it’s going to hurt our ability to attract free agents to sign with us. I’m praying for Jameis but if he comes back less than 100% we will be average again next year. I would really like to see what we have in Book. If he comes in this year and plays well then we’ll have a open QB contest between him and Jameis. If he comes in and lights it up then we have our future at QB and can focus our draft selections on areas of need like WR. The one thing I’m sure about is that Siemian is not our QB 1, 2, or 3.

Our salary cap issues will be why we can't attract FAs, nothing else.

 

[onanygivensunday]

May someone please tell me how much % of our salary cap is sitting on IR?

The 2021 base salary cap is $182.5M/team.

Currently, the Saints have a total of $16.7M sitting on IR, which is 9% of the base salary base (according to overthecap.com). FWIW, the Ravens have $35M sitting on IR.

The problem comes when you factor in the team's dead money (2021 cap space eaten up (mostly) by previously paid signing bonuses of players no longer playing for the team... like Drew, Janoris Jenkins, Sanders, Rankins, Cook, etc.).

The 2021 dead money hit is currently $43.9M. Adding the IR and dead money hits together gets you to $60.6M, which is 33% of the base salary cap.

The Panthers are in worse shape. Combined, they have $72.4M, which is 40% of their base salary cap sitting on IR and in dead money.

 

[Tony1Saintfan]

Our salary cap issues will be why we can't attract FAs, nothing else.

If you really believe that and don’t understand just how much Drew helped us in that department then congratulations. We can now throw a deep ball.

 

[tjharris]

If you really believe that and don’t understand just how much Drew helped us in that department then congratulations. We can now throw a deep ball.

Huh?
We're way over the salary cap next year.
We will likely have to cut people/ restructure to get under the cap.
How can we sign big ticket FAs?
I done see how that relates to the price of tea in China.