I think Nick Underhill is biased because he has a vested interest in the Saints offseason being an exciting story for him to earn a livelihood covering not a depressing compromise. Everything has not always been ok, this past year we went from winning our division with one of the best records in the league to missing the playoffs and having one of the weakest receiving cores in league history. Having to convert roster bonuses and salaries of guys like peat, hill, and thomas to signing bonuses is dangerous because we create situations where very injury prone very potentially ineffective players could play for almost free this year but go into future years with so much deferred money that we can’t afford to cut them no matter how bad they are, so we end up stuck letting players any other team would cut who make no contribution to the team playing out the their contract and cashing ever dollar. Peat could end making more money in 2023 forward than keeping Armstead would have cost. Hill could finish his contract with 8 games played in the next 3 years but more dead money than Brees. Michael Thomas could end up like Antonio Brown with the Raiders and get in a public fued with Payton and punch Lattimore and lose a toe in a cryo chamber but we cant cut him without a 50m cap hit. If we keep managing our cap this way we might even have to sign Peat and Hill to longer extensions to age 40 to spread out the cap hit. We need to maintain flexibility to be able to manage a sane roster and i just dont see how deferring money on bad contracts helps that. Logic and reason and common sense say that leading the league in being over the cap with a non-playoff team is not a good thing.

It was only a non-playoff team due to an unprecedented number of key injuries. Do not ignore the NFL record 58 different starters on offense and defense throughout the season as a significant factor. And that doesn't count the different kickers used due to the preseason injury to our excellent kicker. His absence alone cost us a couple of wins ... which by the way would have easily placed us in the playoffs. And what about that little thing called Ida that displaced the team for the first month?