Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

"Starting the offseason in the red by more than $70 million would concern most teams. But not the New Orleans Saints. After clearing more than $100 million in salary cap commitments for the second year in a row, the Saints have found key weapons on both sides of the ball and landed big additions in their 2022 draft class. Now, after signing all of those deals, they still sit under the cap with $9.6 million left to spend..."

https://saintswire.usatoday.com/2022...022-nfl-draft/

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Magic! I don't keep up with other teams so I don't know if this is the norm or he is extraordinary.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

He's an accountant. The basic premise is to restructure contracts to convert current salary into bonuses, which pushes money out into future salary caps. It operates on the premise, which has been true for more than 20 years except for one (Covid), that the salary cap will grow in future years. So, the players you plan to keep anyway, pay them guaranteed money now, then pay off that money with future money from the next few seasons. $15 million base salary this year gets converted to $1 million base salary, and a $14 million bonus that gets spread out over the next 3-4 years, lowering the cap hit for this year. Do this with 5-6 core players, and $100 million in the hole just evaporates into the future.

The only glitch in the practice is that eventually it hits the wall when the player leaves, leaving dead money to clean up. An example of this is that the Saints 2022 cap is carrying $11 million for Drew Brees even though he hasn't been on the team since January 2021. But with young studs like Kamara, Ramz, and Lattimore, it'll be years before that hit is finally felt.

SFIAH

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

A HUGE reason this roster consistently fields the talent it does AND competes for the playoffs.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Yup. And it is the reason more and more teams are beginning to move toward this model of contract construction. Kansas City and Green Bay are just two of the teams that have copied this method.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

The person that deserves FAR more credit for this cap flexibility is Khai Harley.

https://static.clubs.nfl.com/image/p...qapebyiwaj.jpg

"In his 14th Saints season and 21st in the NFL, Khai Harley's primary focus is contract negotiation and strategic planning/management of the Saints salary cap and roster management. In his seventh season in his current position after serving as director of football administration from 2008-13, he works in conjunction with the player personnel department, making player acquisitions fit within the salary cap structure. Harley works closely with the Pro and College Personnel departments in preparation of free agency and the NFL Draft."

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Loomis/Harley for President! They could fix the US deficit in no time.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Also a shout out to all the Saints vets (darn near about everybody) that agree to restructure their deals to help with the financial gymnastics.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Actually, almost all of these restructures are unilateral. It all a club option. The player gets exactly the same money up front as they would have, but it is just accounted for in subsequent periods. $12 million base salary converted to a $10 million signing bonus prorated and a $2 million salary still puts the same check in their pocket on the same date basically.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

May have to give him a promotion... can't have other teams poach him.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Actually it's more than that to the player. First that player gets the bonus check now. And it's guaranteed at signing. They don't have to wait for game checks to come in season. And if something goes off the rails, their money is secure.

You can see an example of that with Watson and Cleveland.

From: https://www.cleveland.com/browns/202...ics-of-it.html

It's almost certain that Watson will be suspended sometime in 2022. He already has the $8.9 million in the bank. The suspended game checks will only be about $60k per game.

So, while the player has to agree to a restructure and it's not actually unilateral, everyone takes it because both sides always win when it occurs.

SFIAH

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Yes, in the case of a base salary restructure the player does get that money up front. However, a converted roster or other bonus looks the same from the player's perspective.

And I guess I should have said that the simple restructures are unilateral at the time of restructure. I have read that the right to simple restructure (base salary or bonus) is routinely written into contracts to allow the team the flexibility to do a conversion "on the spot" without any additional input from the player or their agents.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

He is on other teams radars already. He is also part of the symposium with owners and much of the minority staff from all teams across the league. It's basically like a job fair to give them exposure.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Loomis has done this since coming here. Haven't hit a wall he couldn't deal with yet.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

I may have to see if he can do my finances. I sure can't.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

He’ll just pass off your dept to your future defendants !

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

I disagree. Any team could do what Loomis did. Any of us could do it. I could email the electric company, rent/mortage, cable, etc right now and tell them I plan to consider my payments to them this month as renewal bonuses and that I planned to stay with them 5 years but all those years would be voidable to me if I didn't and therefore I was able to live on $300 a month because I prorated the electric bill over 5 years, making any giant credit card debt I might have easily manageable, and in fact I would be paying all those bills on said credit cards. That is all Loomis is doing, its not genius, its just that other GMs would prefer to leave a few rounds in the chamber for a rainy day, whereas Loomis let his umbrella go to make it rain for Taysom Hill. Converting current salary and incentives into prorated bonuses is easy but comes with costs. Did it allow us to field a likely 'competitive' team despite starting the season with the least cap space? Sure. But only by stretching the strategy to the limit and putting ourselves in the same situation for next offseason. What this means is that we have to keep doing this every year just to stay neutral and replace what we lose and field a merely 'competitive' team. If we get to a point where we think its our big year and we really want to break the bank and go all out, we can't do that, because we are already going all out just to break even. And if we ever find an elite franchise QB again and want to sign them to a long term contract, we will likely have to suffer big losses at other positions to do it, because if we pay for that contract by restructuring others, we won't be able to do the other things we did this season, and we will lose free agents and not replace them. Essentially we went 'all out' in some of Brees' final seasons and broke the bank to win it all but it didnt work out. Now we are stuck in a cycle of having to go all out just to remain borderline playoff contenders, which we are. But I suspect we would be better off just hitting reset. Imagine what a GM could do in a 'win it all' season if we started 30 million under the cap and we did all the restructuring to cut even more, or to keep players like Armstead and Williams while also adding players like Landry and Mathieu. Also, Loomis filled one major hole at WR by trading next years 1st round pick and more future picks. Ultimately I am not sure most teams can win it all without hitting big on some mid round picks, yet Loomis seems intent on never taking a mid round pick if possible, and protesting by selecting a player who was projected to go undrafted if he is ever forced to make one by lack of trade offers.

It will be an interesting season. If nobody gets hurt on our team and everyone gets hurt on other teams I guess we can do more than appear in the playoffs. But right now I just feel we mortgaged a lot in future salary and future draft picks in order to give a totally unproven coach a team that could probably win 10 games with a proven coach and might get to play a road playoff game or two.

I do think we got good value on Mathieu and Landry. That does not justify Loomis' general strategy. We should not be trading future picks to win now when we probably dont have a team to win it all. We should use the resources we have to budget an escape from the horrendous disasterous Peat and Hill contracts, not creating a situation that will actually force us to resign them to extensions to balance the budget next year and claim its a 'smart move' because we are so leveraged we have to extend them to save a few million in 2023 at a costs of stringings tens of millions of committment to them into future years. We need to start managing our cap more than 1 year out so we can build a roster with sound long term decisions and not with Mr. Glass and the Marshmellow Man.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Here's that event I mentioned earlier.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Weather he’s a cap expert or a draft guru or a master delegator or a pinball wizzard he has been very successful as a gm; better than most teams have.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Bookmark this for mid-season.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

He has been GM since 2002 so he has had 20 years. With that much time, the median expectation would be about 1.25 super bowl appearance and 0.625 super bowl wins. He has 1 and 1. That is slightly above average not amazing. Then it can be debated how much credit Loomis deserves vs Payton and Brees. Loomis is the only one also responsible for 2002-2005, so I would say the least.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

We are often great at mid season because half our brittle players we like to sign have not had their inevitable injuries yet. Lets compare notes at the end of the season. A great outcome is possible but I dont see it as likely.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

B.S. Hardly any team outside of the Pats has lived up to those expectations and if you take away the non call on the PI then we make and win that second SB. Your “expectations” are unrealistic.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

We can only go by what we actually won, which one superbowl in 20 years with Loomis. Getting screwed in the NFCCG was bad luck, but Loomis has had good luck too with Miami passing on Brees and Brees should recovering better than anyone expected. And the the one superbowl we won, that depended on an onside kick to change the momentum. Is Loomis as good as other GMs who have won one Superbowl this millenium? Sure. But there are a lot of those. Loomis has not managed some amazing streak, he is a GM who won one superbowl with one coach and one qb.

Loomis has been GM for 5 seasons where his team did not have both Payton and Brees: 2002-2005 and 2021. In those 5 seasons his team has made 0 playoff appearances. From 2002-2005 the Saints got worse every season under Loomis until he lucked in Payton and Brees. I dont see Loomis as a great GM, I see him as an average GM who lucked into a winning combo of coach and QB once and has never proven he can do anything without them.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

And I say BS. Was he or was he not the GM for the last two decades?…The one who DID in fact win a SB? It’s petty to say he lucked into them. You remind me of what Pats fans say up here now that Brady is gone. Whiny, ungrateful fans that want to throw their coach under the bus. Try being a Lions, Jets, Jags, Redskins, Browns etc fan over the last 20 years and see what your tune would be like.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Not sure Bako has much of a following here for this revisionist view … but he would do well on the Flat Earth Forum and NASA Studio Staged Landing on the Moon crowd.

Saints have had a pretty steady front office, success for years under this group. They just didn’t luck into SP, they hired him into his 1st head coaching job. They went out and got DB when no other teams would take a chance. Have all their call been spot on, of course not name me one single club that has over a 20 year period. Life happens and s**t happen … Improvise Adapt and Overcome.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

And you can thank Loomis in part for building a roster that could withstand injury like last season. 54 different starters and almost making the playoffs.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

Speaking of brittle players, I heard a few days ago that only six teams had their left tackle start every game. Historically guard and tackle are among the LEAST injured positions, but here recently they have been among the highest league wide. They were wondering if it had to do with the playcalling. They were going to get someone to research exactly what type of play was run on every injury. It would really be interesting to see those results. Regardless, it appears the Saints are simply part of the trend.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

So, I was thinking about this a bit more and I wanted to add a few things. First to Bako…While I stand by my points I’m sorry if I’m coming off as confrontational. That’s not what I want to do. I disagree with you but I want to be respectful.

Secondly, consider this when you compare Loomis and his success to other Franchises and GMs; Has any other had to deal with the same amount of adversity as the PI no-call, The Bounty Gate BS and two hurricane displacements? I can’t think of any.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

I think when SP pulled the onside kick and Porter intercepted Manning for a “Pick 6” it destroyed the NFL and media narrative and ordination of Manning’s 2nd Super Bowl. It is suspicious events that have gone against the Saints since but we continue to be a team that exceed all media talking head expections. Look no further than this years game projections, they have losing both regular season Tampa games.

Come on Man.

Re: Mickey Loomis is a Wizard
 

It'd require a giant recession to fix the monstrosity we have. A recession or hyperinflation is coming. Strap yourself in, it's going to be a bumpy ride.