2024 Saints Salary Cap Watch
 

New Orleans Saints 2024 Salary Cap

Yes, the Saints have the highest projected overage of the cap once again in the league, but it is because of how they structure contracts, as we all should know by now.

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Translation/End Result: WE STILL SUCK.

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Kinda like groundhogs day

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That what the accounting department of every successful corporation says when working up the year end numbers. :D

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Our accounting department says “maybe next year”… except, they can’t say it this year… or next year.

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I could see us moving on from some key older players this offseason and trying to gain some control over the salary cap this year. Lattimore probably has the maximum trade value and his new contract makes him more affordable to trade.

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If we trade Lattimore we take a $30 million dead cap hit. If we trade him after June 2 that cap hit comes in 2025 not 2024, but also makes it harder to afford cutting Carr in 2025. The team on the other end of the trade would be stuck paying Lattimore's ~$15 million salary for 2024 in the form of the converted bonus. Lattimore is an aging corner who will have played 17 total games in 2 seasons (50% availability) with mid-60's PFF ratings both seasons (average quality starter but not star level). I think it is very possible we would have to give a team a draft pick to take Lattimore off our hands for $15 million for an old corner with mediocre numbers who misses half his games. If some team gives us a conditional 2026 7th rounder and takes his $15 million salary we are very lucky.

If we changed the bonus and paid Lattimore's salary he would have a bit more trade value, but at $15 million I am just not sure its there. Guys like Kamara and Davis could have more value because they have played well and not been hurt so much so they are more likely to make the difference as one year rentals.

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I don't have a problem with the talent on the team. The team has a playoff caliber roster at a minimum. I don't have a problem with the cap. It's not my money and the knock on the Saints for years was it didn't take care of It's players. Making it a less likeable destination to play and to attract free agents. That's not the case anymore. The current problem in the organization is its refusal to move on from Allen. Campbell takes Goff and makes Detroit a winner. Ryan's takes a rookie QB and a horrible roster and wins in Houston. Allen is THE problem.

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We aren't taking care of our own. We are taking care of the Raiders retreads.

No HOF coach in their prime could win it all with this team. We may have talent at some positions like CB and RB but where it really counts we suck. We have a mediocre retread QB who never won a playoff game, a lethargic slow motion pass rush based on the notion that 35 is the new 25, and a makeshift oline bookended by a geriatric left tackle who was forced to play guard in his prime and a right tackle with a degenerative bum knee. You have to win in the trenches or with an elite QB in the this league and the Saints are built to win with everything but those, which just won't work.

With a great coach and an average schedule this team would be about .500. We are about .500 now because the easy schedule and poor coach cancel out.

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https://sports.yahoo.com/32-teams-in...135429293.html

:popcorn:

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It matters not how it begins, it only matters how it ends. ;)

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We know how it ends
Kicking it down the road and guaranteeing that you can move on from aging vets or players not performing without kicking it down the road again.

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All the while being able to feel like you are good enough to be in every game. Good enough to not suffer through multiple seasons of three or four wins like really suck ass franchises. I remember when we knew we had no chance in certain games. Those days are two decades in the past.

Besides, we're not kicking any cans. We're maximizing the cap by accounting for it in later periods when it counts as a far smaller percentage. Smart accounting. In other words, consistent competitive teams for a value enhanced price.

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Good Lord
A competitive team isn't one that hasn't made the playoffs in 3 years, or missed the playoffs in 7 of the last 12 years.

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We’re competitive against teams that $uck @ss less than us, and that’s Quido’s sad logic. Wait until next year. There will be pain.

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I’d rather kick the can a few years to rebuild something worth a f**k than be consistently mediocre

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Sadly, some (a small few) are simply ok with participation trophies.

Starting with the Saints front office & keeping substitutes disguised as Head Coaches :rolleyes:.

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But it is a team that has a chance at winning every single game in which they take the field whether they win it or not. Many a competitive team fails to make the playoffs. That is the nature of the NFL. Give me a team that makes the playoffs half the years for the rest of my life I'll be pleased. More would be better, of course, but I have followed this team religiously since they started out making the playoffs only five times in our first 39 years and never wavered. The past 19 years under Loomis have been fantastic and I hope we continue being competitive and win a few more Lombardi's before I kick off.

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Translation- I love being mediocre

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It is almost fascinating. Truly.

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It truly is. Most fans talk super bowl…he’s just happy to make it to the playoffs. We are not the same

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He’s actually happy that we’re NOT in the playoffs.

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You know what this may seem harsh to some but its the truth.
I have only followed this teams for nearly 15 years and its was on the back on watching the Falcons game back in the Dome on TV late one night and the Superbowl run and story that went with it, its wasn't if they won or lost but the memories of listening in the radio to the Vikings game

But being happy with being competitive and the ive lived through really bad years is why certain teams in all sports are perennial losers, they may get a few good years and then they sink back into mediocrity. Teams that have winning cultures stay at the top, they may drop off a few years but they generally bounce back and are competitive more often than not. The fan base doesn't allow them to drift, it demands change and will not let anyone from the owners to the players become bigger than the team or ruin the team


Being happy with a 'competitive team' and being better than years ago isn't what makes a good team. Having a team that has few draft picks,no cap space and is vastly overpaying vets or keeping them beyond their sell by date because you can't cut them and a head coach with a 27-55-0 isn't what makes a competitive good team. Having a team that is 80ml over the cap and having the restraucture a mediocre QB to the team for even more years isn't what makes agood team. Nor is already being 40ml over for 2025 with 43 players under contract, before these restructures is you guessed it, not what makes a good team.


My Soccer/Football team was bought out in 2005 by Tom Hicks and George Gillette two MLB/NHL team owners. They leveraged the debt on the club and 5 years later the teams was falling apart and they debt have grown and grown. The fans hit back and went after the banks that were going to give them the finances to carry on. A email campaign happened and its starved the owners of the finance needed to renew the loans and forced a sale to the current Red Sox owners. Since then i have watched them win just about every single trophy available to them because mediocrity isn't accepted. Losing big games, getting better is, just existing in mid table isn't and never should be. Not unless you think everyone deserve a medal for participating

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This is where we differ, I suppose. To some fans winning all is the only thing that matters. They say they can live with a series of dismal losing years as long as winning it all can be a reality (at least in their minds).

Personally, I'd rather win the vast majority of home games every year for twenty years while making the playoffs a majority of those years even if it means never being a favorite to win it all over that period over sucking three or four years in a row every ten years while winning it all once or twice in that same twenty year period.

The sum total of all of those winning games while I'm sitting in the Dome watching my Saints adds up to far more enjoyment than watching the team win a Super Bowl on TV while suffering through full seasons of losing in person. So, yes, I guess you can say that I can be happy with that sort of mediocrity. The drive home after a win is a million times more enjoyable than a drive home after losing a game that you really had no chance of winning since you were in the middle of yet another "rebuild".

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You are not sitting in the middle of a rebuild. It is a repeat.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

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Just another sign that more and more franchises are moving to the cap accounting methodology developed by Loomis and Harley of the Saints. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of the league will have adopted this approach within the next decade.

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Let's not act like the Saints' approach is the gold standard.

Yes other teams employ the accounting tactic but correlation does not imply causation. It certainly doesn't equal championships.

This franchise has won 10+ games in 4 of the last 10 seasons. So I wouldn't go crowning anyone "Genius"...

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Once everyone is using this accounting method it guarantees that the winner will be using it. By no means is the accounting method the do all be all operationally, but financially it maximizes salary utilization in the hard cap environment. There are definitely operational constraints. That is the trade off. But once everyone is on the system the constraints will be the same across the board and no advantage or disadvantage to any one franchise. As we all know the NFL is first and foremost a business and businesses are in it to maximize the dollar.

You are correct in that the method does not relate to championships today. I'm just pointing out that winning championships is not the ultimate goal. A goal, yes, but not the ultimate.

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Quido says: “I'm just pointing out that winning championships is not the ultimate goal. A goal, yes, but not the ultimate.”

If that’s not Troll Chow right there, I don’t know what is.

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Word it however you prefer, we're employing tactics that impact the roster negatively.

And at the expense of youth and depth - two of arguably the most significance.

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And the trade off is flexibility to keep the team competitive. Name another franchise that has not won less than seven games in the last 18 years, or basically since we started using the methodology.

I've never said there weren't drawbacks. The fact is that things are not changing so some of us just have to make the best of it. It is what it is.

:chug:

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Talk about a putrid stench....geesh :beatnik:

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The first of many.

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You are looking at this too much in black and white and assuming a team must either use the Loomis method to the max or live completely under the current salary cap. I think there are many other alternatives.

One of the simplest is to restructure about half of your rosters big contracts annual so that you can take partial advantage of increasing future salary caps but still have the flexibility to apply white out to the second half of bad contracts and not be forced to waste good money after bad. This is what many successful teams are doing. Its like driving a car and using both pedals so you have gas and brakes. It will not get you 100% of the speed of gas only, but you handle turns better.

Another alternative that many successful teams have used is to spend less than the salary cap for a few years and/or to effectively front load contracts by not backloading them, while acquiring higher draft picks, in order then switch gears to max restructuring and backloading new contracts, so that they achieve a peak of salary cap utilization the Saints could never dream of over a briefer period. By averaging out todays dollars over 5 years the Saints may effectively live under the salary cap 2 years from now which is 20-30% higher albeit stuck with many albatross contracts they can't get out of and unable to retool their roster to suit new coaches and changing schemes. But the Saints come in $80 million over the cap before all their restructures. If a competitor comes in $80 million UNDER the cap and does the same restructures they can be $160 million UNDER the cap when the saints are just meeting the cap, and they can go sign Brady and Gronk or trade for Ramsey and Stafford. And since they start under the cap they don't lack flexibility initially and can build a team without dead weight. This has been a very successful formula for teams like the Bucs and Rams.

Another approach is to maximize flexibility while maintaining half that level of warchest. If a team doesn't use much restructuring they may be penalizing themselves 20% on cap but they may be able to cut dead weight and maintain a flexible roster suited to their scheme to make up for it. But the thing is, the second they need to restructure contracts to add more weapons they can. By starting at the salary cap, they can restructure and be $80 million under if needed. By not restructuring most contracts, when they do start restructuring to win within a window of time they have an advantage on the Saints because they may be burdening their 2025 cap with a 2024 restructure prorated bonus, but its not already burdened with with 2021-2023 restructure prorated bonuses hitting in 2025 also, so they have a lighter cap for years to come. This model of lying in wait and winning without debt now, but being able to take it on in the future, is true for a team like the Chiefs or 49ers. Right now they are getting to the big game and having a fair shot to win without going all in. They are able to get out of contracts they don't want to be in. This was also a model the Patriots used for many years, not maxing out the cap and being able to get out of bad contracts. But a team sees their window closing they can still flip the switch any offseason they want, restructure all the contracts, and build a super team for a couple years before they end up stuck in bad contracts and needing a rebuild like the Saints. Jake Haener could have the greatest breakout year of all time in 2024 and win the super bowl and get unanimous MVP over Maholmes and Purdy, but you know what the 49ers could do then? Restructure all their contracts and beat us even if Haener was better than Maholmes, because they could free up $100 million more cap than us. This is like why people having savings accounts and armies have reserves, throwing in 100% sounds like a smart way to max out but actually having a backup plan comes in handy and gives flexibility. Save the rainy day fund for a day it rains. 20% more resources sounds like an obvious choice but where would the Chiefs, 49ers, Bucs, and Rams have been if they could not afford to move on from Smith, Garappalo, Winston, and Goff?

The thing is, your vision of salary cap management is completely stagnant. It ignores the dimension of time. It says to just keep doing the same thing every year, keep chopping wood, keep borrowing to pay back debt. But what other teams are doing is playing 4D chess while Mickey Loomis is playing checkers. They are incorporating timing and cyclicity. Depending on the state of their roster they are building a war chest, advancing while maintaining reserves, balancing debt with liquidity, going all in with overwhelming force, then falling back to regroup when required. Mickey Loomis is just banging his head against a wall until the bottle stops talking to him.

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Not going to waste my time reading your latest novella here. I know it's the same old crap, per usual.

However, with Loomis' method we aren't going to have periods with a totally dismal team. We'll always stay at least competitive. That's vitally important to me living five hours away and holding season tickets. Always being competitive is more important to me than the hopes of winning a championship. I want consistent entertainment. The tickets and travel are very expensive and would be a hard sell to my currently breadwinning wife (I'm retired, she has an excellent job) if we went through a period of 3-14 and 2-15.

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Disclaimer: Quido says: “I'm just pointing out that winning championships is not the ultimate goal. A goal, yes, but not the ultimate.”