44Champs

"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/

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turbo_dog

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

SaintFanInATLHELL

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

Super Bowl Championships: New Orleans Saints:1, Carolina:0, Atlanta Chokers: STILL ZERO

Only Atlanta choked in an unchokable situation... Life is definitely good.

saintsfan1976

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

AsylumGuido

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.

AsylumGuido

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



"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."

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

Rugby Saint II

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

neugey

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.

AsylumGuido

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.

SmashMouth

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