BakoSaint

If we clean house this offseason I have a crazy idea. We are in cap hell with Derek Carr, our highest paid player a liability the team hates, and a cap crunch that forces us to restructure his deal and make it hard to move on even in 2025. If we keep him in 2024 and restructure his contract, the dead cap to cut him in 2025 will be $50 million: $17 million prorated signing bonus + $10 million triggered roster bonus guarantee + $23 million restructured 2024 salary. If we restructure again in 2025 we can have Carr for $18 million in 2025 but then its like $44 million in dead cap to cut him in 2026. It will take awhile for this to end.

One approach is to draft a QB if say we end up with the #7 overall pick. But then that QB languishes with Carr breathing down his shoulder and a compromised roster and cap.

But I just realized there could be another option. We could pull a Goff or Osweiler deal with Carr. Trade our #7 overall pick and Carr to any taker for their conditional 2026 7th round pick. I think some team with lots of cap room would take the offer. Maybe if we have multiple suitors we could even get a 2nd or 3rd back. Then they pay Carr's guaranteed $30 million salary. They pay Carr's $10 million guaranteed 2025 roster bonus (unless they cut him immediately). All we pay is the rest of Carr's prorated signing bonus, a $22.8 million dead cap hit for Carr vs his $35.7 million expected cap charge for 2024. This would be a $13 million savings off the cap from what Carr is currently booked at, and relieve us of $17.1 million of future obligations 2025 and forward, as well as the 2025 $10 million roster bonus guaranteeing.

Technically we could save $23 million by restructuring Carr, but that leaves $50 million in potential dead cap for 2025. So the trade would basically cost us $10 million vs the cheapest restructure now and save us $50 million in 2025. Essentially we would sell our 2024 1st round pick for $40 million of cap relief to accelerate a rebuild. Then we would draft a QB in 2025 with our salary cap greatly healed.

With this option we would not have to start a 1st round rookie QB behind our horrible dangerous oline. We would still have most of our draft picks in rounds 2-7 and could take an oline around #40. In 2025 we could have some cap money and high draft picks to draft a QB and fix the oline more. If we take our rookie QB in 2025, they will be under team control a year longer, when our cap and roster are better rebuilt.

In the long run, this could be the best path to rebuild. And honestly getting rid of Carr might give this team a bounce and we might win as many or more games next year. Dumping a 1st round pick is rough, but we are used to half our 1st round picks never contributing anyway like Penning and Turner. The optimists can say Penning and Turner are finally healthy and it will actually be like we have two 1st round picks for 2024!

And you can say this is crazy, but its not unprecedented. It was done with Brock Osweiler and Jared Goff. Most people would say Derek Carr is a similar disappointment. It cost the Texans a 2nd round pick to offload $16 million of Osweiler's salary in 2017 cap. It cost the Rams a reported 1st round pick (the trade included Stafford and multiple picks so exact breakdown is hard) to offload $43 million of Jared Goff's guaranteed salary in 2021 cap dollars. If anything, a #7 overall pick is expensive to offload Derek Carr's $30-40 million in guaranteed salary (depending on whether the team wants to immediately cut him, or play him in return for triggering $10 million 2025). It would be very much within the reasonable realm of recent NFL transactions for us to be able to offload Derek Carr's guarantees in return for trading back from #7 or so in the draft to the late 1st or early 2nd round, and not impossible that we could offload most of Carr's salary for an early 2nd round pick (if for example we agreed to pay $5-10 million of his guarantees).

Another thing is this could be a draft day trade. We could have discussions in advance. If the QB or other amazing player we really believe in is there at #7 or whatever we could take them. If they are not, instead of taking a fallback option, we could pull the trigger on a Carr trade.

saintsfan1976

No trade clause.

MatthewT

I doubt the NFL would approve this trade proposal. If I read everything correctly, what is being suggested is the Saints package up their 2024 1st Round Pick plus Derek Carr for a future later round pick which would be 2026 7th Round, maybe even capturing a 2nd or 3rd round pick somewhere.

This is a bit different from both the Lions/Rams trade and the Texans/Browns trade. The Lions/Rams was pretty simple, it involved players on both sides that could be considered somewhat even, so no real issue. The Texas/Browns if you look at it carefully, Osweiler was essentially packaged with a next year 2nd round pick, a same year 6th round pick, and received a higher draft spot for same year in the 4th round. Yes, it was lopsided, but with future draft picks considered to have lesser value, the NFL was able to approved the trade.

If I missed something please correct me.

BakoSaint

The no trade clause could be a problem. Mickey Loomis is so stupid negotiating against himself. Still, maybe Carr could be convinced to accept a trade if he knows he will be 3rd string in New Orleans and has an ego and wants a Jared Goff style chance with a new team or wants a team that can afford to release him so he can pursue his own destiny and reunite with some other former assistants.

The structure of the trade is easily addressed. I don't want to trade our 2025 1st round pick though. One easy was to address it would be to ask the other team to also include a player who has little or no value and a low non-guaranteed salary. For example the Titans lead the league in 2024 cap. They could include Treylon Burks who looks to be a bust for them with 122 receiving yards on the year. In one sense he is a 1st round #18 overall pick who the NFL can't say is not worth a 1st rounder. On the other hand he makes $1 million salary and has done nothing but get injured and be mediocre his 1st two years. The Patriots have the 2nd most cap and could trade us former pro bowler Ty Montgomery or Ezekiel Elliott in the trade. And maybe Belichick thinks he could fix Carr.

K Major

Getting rid of DCarmax? Good luck with that one.

The Mickster Mickey Mouse Loomis picked the substitute teacher aka the lazy hire.
The Mickster picked Carr & gave him a ton of money to perform like a back up.
The Mickster allowed an assistant substitute teacher (Pete C) to stick around even though he didn't want the job.
The Mickster got fleeced in the Philly trade.

And here we are in mediocrity land ... again. 2009 was a long time ago.

Mickey Mouse Loomis is the bigger problem here.

papz

But but but... he kicks the can so well. He's such a salary cap guru.


Glorified accountant is what he is and always has been. It's not like Drew's retirement was abrupt. We had years to plan for his exit and we failed miserably with zero accountability. I hope they don't blow it and let Ben Johnson go to San Diego. We need some new life to energize this organization and fanbase back up.

rezburna

I’d just take the dead cap for releasing him.

Rugby Saint II

We're stuck with Carr for another year unless we give him an extension.......which is a distinct possibility.

neugey

Bako's done more work in this thread than Mickey has done all year.

SmashMouth

It's the only way... it'll hurt for a year or two. But we have "pretty boy" who can't be any worse, really. Might even be a surprise. We'll suck for a year or two also, but we'll be able to rebuild with higher draft picks in those said two years.