I think it depends on what you mean by without him. The Saints might actually have won more games last year if they had cut Michael Thomas before training camp and given more reps to replacement and planned their offense more around replacements. It's easy to point to the one game he won for us, but the effect on the 14 games he missed is more subtle. In the long run that would also have opened up money for new receivers and perhaps a draft pick if some sucker team bet on a comeback.

People said last year that if Peat and Thomas did not perform in 2022 they would be gone. They pointed to Peats contract and said this is his last year. I am sure in 2021 the contract looked like they would make that possible, but then the contracts were restructured to defer more money and they became more costly to cut than restructure so we took another chance. I forsee that happening again and again forever. The difference with players like Armstead and Onyemata is we have to get in bidding wars to keep them, so even if there is deferred money, the cost to keep them is still big. If our players succeed, we can only keep about half of them with our cap situation, but the ones who fail we can keep 100%, because once they get deferred money into future years (not just short term rentals) it is always cheaper to restructure and defer on a 1 year basis than to walk away, every offseason, forever. And there is no bidding war so its simple. Thomas and Peat for life.

If Michael Thomas passes his physical, I think there is a 70% chance he will play week 1 and a 10% chance he will play at least 14 games. I think he is like Rashaad Penny or JT Watt or post-rings Terrell Davis. It's easy enough to suit up for a few weeks but he isn't durable any more. I think that is actually worse than paying to cut him, because even if he wins us games when he plays, that just sets us up to get embarrassed in the wild card when he is not there, gives us a worse draft pick, loses us games when he is out because his backup didn't get the starting reps in camp, and wastes money on a formula that doesn't win rings. Romo has no rings. Watt has no rings. Because to lead a team to a ring, you need to be durable enough to take the field in the playoffs.

On that off 10% chance Thomas had a healthy season, it also puts us in a horrible position. If we keep him, we have to bet on him staying healthy with all those past injury skeletons in the closet, and he will demand a big time deal. If we let him walk, we will eat a bunch of dead cap and get nothing in return because his contract has a void clause that makes it like he was cut, not his contract expires, so no tags and no comp picks. But if we resign him to avoid the cap hit, then probably in 2024 training camp he breaks his pinky toe and refuses surgery and we pay him $120 million / 4 years for nothing, which we restructure over and over so that $80 million of it gets deferred to the last year of the deal in 2027, and in 2027 we need to get under the cap so we have to sign a player who has played 35 games in 8 years to a multi-year extension to spread out the pain. And then we start restructuring that contract, until Mickey Loomis swallows the worm and chokes.