2023 Saints Salary Cap Watch
 

It coming into that time of year again when creatively constructed contracts begin to turn into readily available cap. One of my favorite times of the off-season.

Last season the Saints went into this period setting at more than $100 million over the projected 2022 cap. As we all know, the higher than normal deficit was due to the lower than expected cap number itself. Things are getting back to normal and the cap should continue to skyrocket throughout the upcoming years of colossal broadcast deals.

The Saints come into the 2023 season at between $53 and $57 million over depending upon the final cap figure. Spotrac.com has them at $-53.425 on the all 53.

I'm going to be posting the cap adjustment moves as they occur here.

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Khai Harley probably hasn't slept in days getting the cap right.

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I think he's Probably been sleeping pretty comfortably. :D He had it all planned out when he wrote up the contracts. The easy part is now simply converting the base salaries and bonuses as needed.

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See ya 4-7!

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I believe Breer means the 2023 cap.

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It looks like there is something to be said for living on a credit card if you make more money next month than you do right now, and paying it off when you have more money. I like the idea of having millions and millions of dollars each year available from next year's increase.

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Yup. That's the whole principle behind Loomis' and Hartley's system. In economics and accounting studies we would have related it to present versus future values.

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Let's increase the spending limit on our credit cards. We're going shopping!

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The way it sits we can cover our cap overage of $57 million and then have an additional $30 million or more to spend on upgrades.

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If your goal is to win the most games on average over a long period by assuming the salary cap will continue to rise this could be valid but has some caveats. For instance, spending too much future money can reduce the flexibility to cut bad contracts like Andrus Peat or Michael Thomas because guaranteed money is backloaded and the cap hit is always bigger to cut them than to give them another year, but then over the long term the same keeps being true the next year, and suddenly you have paid a washed up player for many years. But alas, there is another reason it may be a bad idea. Some teams have a goal of championships, not decadal average wins. If your goal is a championship it can be valuable to win a whole lot of games in peak years even if you have some down years in rebuilding. Most consecutive seasons with at least 7 wins is not worth as much bragging rights as an extra ring or two. Because the cap almost always goes up, it seems smart to spend 2024’s money in 2023 and gives you more theoretical resources than a team spending 2023’s money in 2023. But the trouble is you may face a team that did not spend 2023’s money in 2022, but had a solid season anyway, and chooses to spend both 2023’s money and 2024’s money in 2023. We can’t do that because we already spend 2023’s money in 2022, so we either have to spend 2024’s money in 2023 or accept a likely somewhat down year, but either way we are outgunned by a team that is putting more on the line all at once.

What seems smart to me is to focus on freeing up cap when you are not close enough to a ring to be a favorite if you max out the cap, and to max out the cap if you are close enough and it does make you one of the favorites or your window is closing with an aging franchise qb. If you have a young elite franchise qb who will keep you a favorite for years, it can be smart to strike a balance, and wait until the window is closing to max out. Its all about timing. You have to know when to accelerate into the straightaways and put on the brakes a little on the curves.

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It's time to clean up this salary cap mess we're in by not extending contracts to underperforming players. The big problem with moving all this money forward is that we have to pay players who are no longer worth their contract.

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Here's the first move to position ourselves for 2023.

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Erik McCoy should be one of the next restructures. He's carrying a $10 million 2023 roster bonus that will be converted. His contract runs through 2027 so that conversion alone will free up $8 million in 2023 cap.

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Jordan, Davis, Ramczyk, and Lattimore are all candidates to have restructures. Those four, along with McCoy would get us close to the cap figure. There's easily another $30 million that can be opened up elsewhere.

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You can add Kamara to that restructure list. He's going nowhere either.

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Marcus Maye was a bit of a disappointment and yet we are extending him knowing that he will miss time because of a looming suspension. Let's make sure that we restructure Andrus Peat, Tre Quan Smith, and Marcus Davenport while we're at it.

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Andrus Peat shouldn't even be playing for New Orleans in 2023 if you asked me.

Story

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Should never have been extended . We would have gotten a compensatory pick which may be starting right now .

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Or on someone else roster.

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Obviously Dexton does not realize that anyone signed as QB can be structured in such a way that his 2023 cap hit would be minimal. Ignorance. :rolleyes:

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Ryan Ramczyk missed several games before having surgery on his knee during the 2021 off season. He has been limited in practice and was given a rest day each week last season. I realize we need to find money somewhere now but don't want to invest further in a player who may be on his last leg.

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Ramczyk is no worse off than 75% of players that have been in the league for a few years. As has been said a million times, the NFL is a 100% injury league. Besides, he's arguably the best offensive lineman on the team.

That said, a restructure does not mean investing anymore money at all. It's paying him exactly what he was to receive already this season, but accounting for it in future periods.

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Restructures tend to force investing more money in players. By avoiding accounting for the money due now and pushing it off for future years, and then spending the money freed up now on additional players who also have backloaded contracts, we create a situation where we maximize the cap hit of cutting those players in future. If you leave a players contract alone the cost to cut them in the next offseason might be $15 million dead cap. But if you convert $20 million of their salary to prorated signing bonus suddenly the cap hit to cut them next offseason if they struggle may be $35 million. Usually early years in a big contract are guaranteed while later years are not guaranteed. How restructures tend to force more investment is that say next season if that player has a $15 million dead cap to avoid paying a $20 million non guaranteed salary we can move on. But if there is a $35 million cap hit to cut them and get out of a $20 million non guaranteed salary and we also have a ton of other backloaded contracts and are $60 million over the cap, we can’t afford that cap hit, even if we know the player is washed up. So in the next offseason we restructure again to convert that $20 million salary to another prorated signing bonus. Then the next offseason its $50 million cap hit to cut that player. So by playing the restructure game we dont just pay the same money later. We end up effectively guaranteeing most or all of the contract. If Ram breaks down we lose the ability to bail on the later non guaranteed years if we restructur, which could lead to investing tens of millions more.

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Amen brother! :notworthy:

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There's the expected McCoy restructure.

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Back at third year minimum for another try. Not guaranteed, of course. Hopefully we find better depth before the season.

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If we keep kicking the can down the road eventually we will have to pay through the nose for what we have today. I agree with Guido that the salary cap is growing but we cannot expect it to cover our mounting debt. Eventually, Gail Benson is going to have to right some pretty big checks for some underperforming players who are not on the roster any longer. That could get old soon. It would for me if I was writing the checks.

It's time to get out of the win now mode and stop paying these bloated contracts and bring in some young depth without trading away our draft picks to move up for a particular player to get us to the Super Bowl.

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Those checks have already been written, Rugs. The cap maneuvering is just accounting for the money already paid to the player. It all makes no difference to the owner. Every team is required to pay a certain percentage of revenues to the players. She isn't paying a penny more than any other average NFL owner.