BakoSaint

I agree that we should not expect much value in return for trading Lattimore. Even though his age sounds young, he has a lot of wear on the tires for an NFL cornerback, is showing signs of reduced performance, and has only played half the games the last two years. Really he was only super elite his rookie year and since then he has a habit of completely shutting down Mike Evans or Julio Jones so that he can relax the next week and give up decent yardage to some random receiver, so its important to remember he is a borderline pro bowler who has not made the pro bowl the last two seasons, not a perennial all pro like some homers make him out to be.

The reason to potentially trade Lattimore even if you don't get much in return, is that his $18 million a year salaries for 2025 and 2026 do not look to be a very good value as his quality and quantity of play decrease, and Adebo and Taylor have more youth, upside, and durability. While trading him would create a big cap hit immediately, it would free up a lot of money down the road that could be used to retain existing players or to add new players at positions where we dont have two young projected starters with high upside.

That said, a players trade value is not solely based on their ability, its also based on cost. If Lattimore is being offered for trade with an $18 million salary for the upcoming season his value is very low. But if the Saints have just restructured Lattimore's contract, converted $17 million to a signing bonus that will stick on the Saints books even if he is traded, and a team has the ability to acquire Lattimore for $1 million for a year, regardless of exorbitant costs for future years where he would be cut if he did not take a pay cut, then Lattimore could be worth a 2nd or 3rd round pick more because its a cap mechanism to basically trade money for a draft pick knowing Lattimore is surely worth more than $1 million and could offer win-now value.

Knowing that Ram, Mathieu, and Davis took pay cuts, its reasonable to wonder if other players on the team were presented with pay cuts and refused. Lattimore is not worth $18 million a year playing 50% of games at his age and not playing at the most elite level when healthy. Its possible the Saints are discussing a pay cut. The only way any players will ever take pay cuts that make sense for the Saints if sometimes when they don't they get cut or they are traded to a team that views them as a 1 year rental and presents the risk of learning a new system. So we have to cut or trade some players whose salaries no longer make sense, unless we want to overpay everyone.