Should Saints rebuild or are they close to being a NFC contender again?

[scar988]

1 hour ago, THE DUKE said:

At some point they will need to have a dead cap year to reset the scales.  Just take a year and eat like $90 million in dead cap space and stop pushing it off.  That's the price of years upon years of cap manipulation.

The problem with their contract structures is they need like 3-4 years of $90M in dead cap to clear out all the negative.

[CriminalMind]

Carr is just dead weight.
The sooner they execute a plan to move on, is the sooner they start moving in the right direction.

Same with Vikings and Cousins ... but still with some short term pain regardless.

ATL should forget Cousins ... and take a chance on the 3rd or 4th QB off the draft board IMO

[NYRaider]

6 hours ago, Tugboat said:

Payton wasn't covering over anything once Brees left though.  It was just desperate scrambling trying to run things the way they had under Brees...and if you don't have that QB...it just doesn't work.

But that's the point.  Saw the same thing in NE with Brady.

You can get away with so much and there are so many things you can just kick down the road forever when you have "That Guy" at QB.  But as soon as you don't, the whole house of cards just implodes spectacularly.  As it did with a pair of HoF coaches in both Bill and Payton.

To be fair he only coached the Saints for one year after Brees retired and they went 9-8. The offense fell off but that was more so due to Winston getting hurt and the team having to roll with Taysom Hill, Ian Book, and Trevor Siemian. When Winston was healthy they were 5-2 and had one of the best offenses in the league.

[Raves]

On 3/4/2024 at 1:06 PM, Soko said:

They can’t eat that dead cap, they’ll be non-compliant. 

Coming into the offseason, cutting every player on the roster that would garner positive cap space, would leave them over the cap. Trading them won’t even help.

Their only option (which they’ve already began doing) is pushing money forward even more, to gain compliance for 2024. They’re already over $50M+ over for 2025 too, so they’ll probably be doing this again for at least one more year before they have any breathing room. 

It’s not really a question of blowing it up vs keep kicking the can. They literally can’t afford to blow it up and trade some of their pricier players.

 

4 hours ago, scar988 said:

The problem with their contract structures is they need like 3-4 years of $90M in dead cap to clear out all the negative.

I think the Saints will be back to being in a good cap space sooner than people expect, but it's going to definitely cost the Saints some of their young talent going forward.  With the cap jumping $30 million this year due to the recent TV deals, I wouldn't be surprised to see the cap make rather large jumps the next few years as well.  But to be able to do that while staying cap compliant, they'll need to let some of their good, but not great players walk due to being overpaid elsewhere, unless they get them locked in before FA with a reasonable deal.

So to those that are suggesting trading their picks for future year picks, that's only going to work if teams want to trade up and are offering up those picks.  I do think trading back through is a good option for them as it'll let them have more chances of getting younger players ready to step in when players are about to walk due to their cap cost.  The Saints were a year late in trying to find Terron Armstead's longterm replacement, so they made the deal with Philly to get 2 picks in that range so they can try and ensure Olave who they really wanted as well as Penning who they hoped would take over at LT or another player they had rated high in that range if Penning was gone.

[massraider]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:07 AM, sparky151 said:

Carr isn't the problem in New Orleans, he gives them above average play for average pay. They need value like that.

He has cap numbers of $51 mill and $61 mill in 25 and 26.  They have 17 million in dead cap for him, in 2027, when he's a free agent. That's ALREADY dead money, in 2027. 

Carr has 40 mill in dead money next year. Not the end of the world, right? If they want to move on. But the Saints are currently showing 311 million in salary cap for next year. They may be forced to push some of his base salary next year in order to get under the cap. 

 

People don't realize how bad it is in NO. Look at their cap. 

Click on the 25 tab, or the 26 tab, or the 27 tab. Look at any player with a 0 in the base salary, and then look at their cap number. Those are ALL guys with Void years, so the cap gets spread out extra years after their contract is up, and they have left the team. 

They may need to trade Lattimore strictly for cap purposes. 

[sparky151]

Carr signed with the Saints for around 35 mil per year. His cap numbers are large in the future because they've already restructured him for 2024. That was necessitated by their other cap problems but it's not because Carr is wildly overpaid or anything like that. 

[Kingram]

The Saints aren't a contender, but they shouldn't blow it up either. The cap space thing is so hilariously overblown. Other teams are actually in much worse situations than us. Mickey Loomis structures all of the Saints contracts with the intent and purpose to push money into bonuses and push money down the road. The ONLY reason it even got slightly out of hand, was because COVID happened and the salary cap dropped. The huge unexpected jump this season has basically fixed all of the potential future issues the Saints face.

 

They will continue to start off-seasons in the negative, but all it takes is a few very low risk restructures to get positive. 

[sparky151]

1 minute ago, Kingram said:

The Saints aren't a contender, but they shouldn't blow it up either. The cap space thing is so hilariously overblown. Other teams are actually in much worse situations than us. Mickey Loomis structures all of the Saints contracts with the intent and purpose to push money into bonuses and push money down the road. The ONLY reason it even got slightly out of hand, was because COVID happened and the salary cap dropped. The huge unexpected jump this season has basically fixed all of the potential future issues the Saints face.

 

They will continue to start off-seasons in the negative, but all it takes is a few very low risk restructures to get positive. 

This is whistling past the graveyard. The Saints have players that other teams would cut for performance reasons but they can't because the dead money hit is prohibitive. That's a huge competitive disadvantage. 

[Kingram]

56 minutes ago, massraider said:

He has cap numbers of $51 mill and $61 mill in 25 and 26.  They have 17 million in dead cap for him, in 2027, when he's a free agent. That's ALREADY dead money, in 2027. 

Carr has 40 mill in dead money next year. Not the end of the world, right? If they want to move on. But the Saints are currently showing 311 million in salary cap for next year. They may be forced to push some of his base salary next year in order to get under the cap. 

 

People don't realize how bad it is in NO. Look at their cap. 

Click on the 25 tab, or the 26 tab, or the 27 tab. Look at any player with a 0 in the base salary, and then look at their cap number. Those are ALL guys with Void years, so the cap gets spread out extra years after their contract is up, and they have left the team. 

They may need to trade Lattimore strictly for cap purposes. 

No. People who don't really understand the salary cap think it's bad. People who actually know have repeatedly said its a complete non-issue. The bolded is exactly what I'm talking about. It actually barely benefits the Saints at all cap wise to trade Lattimore, it's a completely bogus narrative pushed by media that you're buying. 

[Kingram]

Just now, sparky151 said:

This is whistling past the graveyard. The Saints have players that other teams would cut for performance reasons but they can't because the dead money hit is prohibitive. That's a huge competitive disadvantage. 

The only player that would fall under that scope is Cameron Jordan, and he's coming off his first bad season ever. They also probably wouldn't cut him anyways, guys been a lifer. 

[Kingram]

Reading this thread. Its hysterical how little the average fan knows about the Saints situation. Lot of Nick Wright talking points being thrown around in here. The Saints are about to be cap compliant without cutting anyone of value, again. 

 

The reason the Saints are a middling team is they have missed on a handful of first round picks. Full stop. If they had hit on draft picks instead of taking Marcus Davenport, Cesar Ruiz, Payton Turner and Trevor Penning they likely win the division the last two seasons. 

[Jakuvious]

32 minutes ago, Kingram said:

The only player that would fall under that scope is Cameron Jordan, and he's coming off his first bad season ever. They also probably wouldn't cut him anyways, guys been a lifer. 

So, you think they kept last year Michael Thomas because he was worth his $14M cap hit? Not because they didn't want to escalate it to a $31M cap hit with the dead money of losing him added in?

Do you think they extended Derek Carr because they believe in him as a QB who can make them a superbowl contender in the coming years? Or did they do it because they needed to push his salary down the road to get cap compliant?

 

Their cap situation dictates their personnel decisions. That is cap hell. It's not about whether or not they can get under the cap. Every team can do that, there are too many tools available to not. Cap hell is the cost of getting compliant. The good players you can't keep, the bad ones you can't get rid of. Yeah, they'll get compliant. They won't cut anyone (because they can't) to do so. They'll roll it back next year with the same core that no one thinks is going to get them anywhere, because that's all they can do.

Like, is it a healthy cap situation when if Cameron Jordan retires next year, you'll be paying $22M against the cap for him?

41 minutes ago, Kingram said:

No. People who don't really understand the salary cap think it's bad. People who actually know have repeatedly said its a complete non-issue. The bolded is exactly what I'm talking about. It actually barely benefits the Saints at all cap wise to trade Lattimore, it's a completely bogus narrative pushed by media that you're buying. 

Lol what "people who actually know"? Saints fans on Twitter?

[Soko]

53 minutes ago, Kingram said:

The Saints are about to be cap compliant without cutting anyone of value, again. 

You say that as if “cutting anyone of value” would fix their problems in the first place. Only kicking the can does that, and that’s what they’ve done.

Having a bunch of dead money and void years locked into aging or mediocre players is exactly what cap hell is. It’s not literally being unable to be non compliant to the cap - nobody ever reaches that point. But they’re not able to do what they want freely. They have to hold on to guys longer than they want. They’re likely going to have to lose guys they don’t want to lose. They can’t go out and be active in FA to fill holes in the roster. That’s cap hell. Like, saying “we can restructure (thus, make more expensive in the future) a bunch of old/mid tier players in order to get under the cap and be compliant” doesn’t mean you’re not in cap hell. That’s exactly what teams in those crappy situations have to do. 

The only thing you’re right about is that even asking the question “should they blow it up?” is kind of a non-starter, because they couldn’t blow it up in 2024, even if they wanted to.

Edited March 5 by Soko

[Raves]

57 minutes ago, Kingram said:

Reading this thread. Its hysterical how little the average fan knows about the Saints situation. Lot of Nick Wright talking points being thrown around in here. The Saints are about to be cap compliant without cutting anyone of value, again. 

 

The reason the Saints are a middling team is they have missed on a handful of first round picks. Full stop. If they had hit on draft picks instead of taking Marcus Davenport, Cesar Ruiz, Payton Turner and Trevor Penning they likely win the division the last two seasons. 

Hasn't Cesar Ruiz finally turned it around and played well?  Though he did take like 2 years to get there.  Davenport was good when healthy, just never healthy.  Turner is unacceptable as he hasn't even came close to seeing the field, while Penning has struggled but he at least has shown the tools to be an NFL player, he just hasn't played well.

[massraider]

55 minutes ago, Kingram said:

No. People who don't really understand the salary cap think it's bad. People who actually know have repeatedly said its a complete non-issue. The bolded is exactly what I'm talking about. It actually barely benefits the Saints at all cap wise to trade Lattimore, it's a completely bogus narrative pushed by media that you're buying. 

Thanks, I understand it just fine.

So does Jason from OTC:

The benefit to trading Lattimore is not 24 cap relief. It's 25 and 26 cap relief, which they need. See, Some People who don't know the cap think that by clearing enough space for this year, everything is fine. 25 and 26 look terrible for them as well, because of the insane contract they gave to Carr, and then in order to clear space, they are going to add more Void years to Carr's deal, making it harder to get away from him. 

This team is not avoiding Cap Hell by adding void years and getting under the cap. They are dead in the middle of Cap Hell, right now. Just because they a re able to field a team, actually put people on the field, does not mean they are able to build a team. 

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space  LOL-----Click on 2025. See where it says the Pats have 200 mill in cap space?  Scroll all the way down the bottom there. See that one team in RED, with NEGATIVE $51 million?

That's not from whiffing on 1st round picks.