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Why Moving on from Carr this offseason is not a financial option.

There has been various discussion of moving on from DA, PC, Carr, and others. I am all for coaching changes. I also don't know that Winston or Haener would not be better than Carr, though I am highly skeptical they would be. But I just wanted to provide some neccessary background for why moving on from Carr this offseason is probably not realistic. I know some like the option and some hate it and feel Carr is fine, but I just want to explain what the option actually means and why it probably is not an option.

The Saints are $71.5 million over the projected 2024 salary cap, but this is not the end of the world because we can restructure contracts to save up to about $110-120 million if we restructure every eligible contract. Restructuring means we take money that is due in 2024 like base salary and roster bonuses and convert all but an about $1 million base salary into a signing bonus which can be prorated over up to the next 5 years, including void years if needed, so only 1/5th of the money is due in 2024.

The problem is that Carr is the biggest contract we can restructure for the most 2024 cap savings. Restructuring Carr saves us $23 million off the 2024 salary cap.

The other problem is that Carr's $30 million 2024 base salary is fully guaranteed, he is due a $5.7 million prorated bonus in 2024 from his signing bonus, and he is due $17.1 million in prorated bonuses over the 2025-2027 period. If he is cut, all those bonuses become due in 2024, and we still have to pay his base salary since its guaranteed, which is usually what you cut a player to avoid. So if he is cut, instead of saving $23 million we owe an extra $17 million in 2024. This is a net change of $40 million for our salary cap picture.

This means if we cut Carr, we are $88.5 million over the 2024 salary cap and we can save about $87-97 million if we restructure every contract on our roster to the max. Beyond this there is nothing that can be done to free up salary cap. Loomis' cap magic is entirely dependent on this tactic of restructuring contracts to defer base salary and roster bonuses over 5 years. There is no additional magic that allows them to be deferred over 10 years or to restructure more players than are on our own roster or to get to restructure the same money twice, there is a hard limit and when you hit that you cannot do anything else.

All our other contracts are structured much like Carr's, for the first year it costs not saved money to cut players. There is only one player we can cut and save more than $1.25 million which is James Hurst at $2.7 million which is not much money anyway, and all the players we could cut to save $1 million would cost the same to replace with another minimum salary player.

Essentially if we cut Carr, we take a net $40 million cap hit versus restructuring him, and at most after restructuring everyone and not moving on from any other players who might be part of our problems this year we have $10 million cap space. Then we need to sign our draft picks which will cost about $10 million cap space.

So if we cut Carr our 2024 roster is our 2023 roster, minus Carr, Thomas, Peat, Winston, Baun, and any other minor free agents, plus our draft class, plus minimum salary players. There will be virtually no money left over to sign free agents earning starting level pay, trade for them, cut anyone other than Carr earning starting level pay which would incur a dead cap hit, or sign any players to an extension at starting level pay (as we would already be restructuring those players base salary and roster bonuses over the maximum of 5 years, so any new money increase our cap burned in 2024 since 1/5th of it would hit immediately, and players would be unlikely to sign an extension without any additional bonus the first year).

Cutting Carr would completely paralyze our 2024 roster. It would be the moment the salary caps hard limits finally hit. If we do seek a new coach, this situation would make us a very undesirable job, as that coach could not really bring in any new veteran starters to put their imprint on the team, and they would be stuck with a rookie QB or a very minimum salary veteran. We might not even be able to afford to resign Winston if some team got crazy and offered him $6-8 million a year for for two years if he comes into a few games for us and looks decent. Also, the new coach would not be able to purge veterans who don't fit his system and were loyal to the old regime, so even if a new coach benched some veterans in favor of new blood, they would have to remain on the roster, creating controversies if young players struggle.

There are two caveats to all this. In theory we could designate Carr a post-June-1 cut. But this is very complicated. Carr has a $10 million 2025 roster bonus that becomes guaranteed if he is still on the roster this March. Preventing this guarantee is the only financial benefit to cutting him this offseason, since his base salary in 2024 is guaranteed. But, if he is designated a post-June-1 cut, I am not sure if this roster bonus could prevent being guaranteed, since in some sense he is still on the roster until June 1 for financial purposes. Even if it would prevent the guarantee, a post-june-1 cut is complicated in how it works, and the team is not supposed to get the cap benefit until June 1. But we are not allowed to exceed the salary cap at any time prior to june 1 either. So, we would have to do all the moves to restructure virtually every veteran with a non-minimum salary on our roster anyway, which takes away the flexibility to move on from any of those other players. We could designate other players we want to get rid of as post June 1 cuts but the same problems arise, and we are only allowed to designate two players, and I dont think we can designate any trades as post-June-1. So overall, the post june 1 thing is probably not a very useful tool in this situation where we are so far over the salary cap and have to stay under it at all times and have to restructure everyone.

The second caveat is that while Derek Carr's $30 million 2024 salary is fully guaranteed, in theory if we traded him another team could pay it. If we managed to get another team to accept Carr's full $30 million salary we could actually save $13 million which is still not as much as the $23 million we would save with a restructure, but is close. The thing is, no other team is likely to want Carr for $30 million, unless for example we give them our 1st round pick for taking Carr off our hands, which I don't think many fans would want us to give up.

Overall, I don't think moving on from Carr this offseason is a viable financial option once you consider the implications. His 2024 base salary is fully guaranteed so we don't save any money really, except the $10 million 2025 roster bonus. Even if Carr sits the entire season on the bench, we are better using our money other way. But its much more practical to bring in different coaches who might be able to get more out of Carr, at least as a bridge starter, and move on in 2025 if needed when his base salary is not guaranteed, even if that pesky roster bonus is. If we restructure Carr, we at least have a little salary cap flexibility to do things such as bring in some help on oline, take a few cap hits cutting some other veterans who may not fit long term to free up 2025 cap space to make it easier if we need to move on from Carr, sign other role players who may fit a new coaches system, etc.