BakoSaint

People are talking like the Falcons are close to the cap and surprised they could get Judon and Simmons, or think Terry Fontenot brought some super secret cap wizardry, but the truth is that the Falcons and Saints both could make lots of cap room, but shouldn't, because maxing out to win now with aging players is a mistake and would cost them later.

https://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space

Sites like the above that list a teams current salary cap space don't really list their 'true' max salary cap space unless you dig into the number and do a quick copy and paste to Excel and add some things up. Contracts typically include language that allows the team to restructure a players contract without the player even needing to sign anything, simply by converting most of their base salary and/or roster bonus to a signing bonus and cutting them a check. Even if the player could refuse, 99% wouldn't because its the same money, sooner, with more guarantees (for example its protected from cuts or suspensions), but helps the team because on the books it can be prorated over 5 years, adding void years if needed. The 'true max salary cap room' the Falcons have if they went 'full-Loomis' when even Loomis is starting to hold back could be calculated by taking every player with a 2024 base salary + roster bonus above the minimum for their veteran status, subtracting that minimum salary, multiplying the remainder by 0.8 (as 80% can be prorated to future years over 5 years), and adding that to the true salary cap room, for each such player.

On overthecap.com it seems you can see this amount if you select 'Extension' as selecting 'Restructure' does not add any potential void years and shows zero potential to restructure an expiring contract such as AJ Terrell.

Based on this, the Falcons have the following additional salary cap space:

Approximate Restructure potential:
$9m Kirk Cousins
$11.5m Jake Matthews
$12m Grady Jarrett
$9.5m Jessie Bates
$7.5m Kaleb McGary
$5.8m AJ Terrell
$3.3m Kyle Pitts
$3m Kaden Ellis
$4.2m Matthew Judon
$2.3m Younghoe Koo
$2.1m Lorenzo Carter
+ Small amounts under $2m for various other players
=$88.8m+ additional salary cap room (copied the Extension column dollars to excel, deleted the cells where an extension causes a small cap hit for some reason on minimum salary players, and did SUM function)
=$95.9mil True Max Salary Cap Room.

In other words if the Chiefs accidently made a clerical legal error that allowed Patrick Mahomes to become an unrestricted free agent and Mahomes requested a $400mil signing bonus prorated at $80mil a year over 5 years + $10 mil base salary the first year doubling every year from his new team, the Falcons could fit that one small additional contract under their 2024 salary cap with simple restructures an amateur fan with access to a computer with google can figure out. But if the Falcons did this (and maybe Mahomes is one of the few players it would be worth it for) it would put them in a world of hell for a long time, unable to cut any aging ineffective player, and for example Mahomes suffered a major injury and was forced to retire, the Falcons would violate the salary cap and receive a historic punishment.

By contrast the Saints have $10.8m existing salary cap room + $30.3m restructure potential for a total max salary cap room of $41.1m, less than half what the Falcons have. They could likely sign a player to a contract larger than any existing contract in league history, though not as big as the Mahomes deal above, and remain under the cap. However, since they are fairly close to maxed out they would get get into dangerous territory quickly, especially since an injury that could force Carr to retire would be more likely.

Last season the Saints were down to something like $5 million true max salary cap room. Every large contract that could be restructured was. I believe James Hurst was the largest base salary contract at $3-4mil. Maybe I didn't count the nickel and dime potential restructures of backups that could have yieled a few hundred thousand each and the Saints could have got to $10mil under in 2023. That shows how insane the 2023 Saints salary cap situation was. The Falcons could give Mahomes $400 million signing bonus now and be no worse off than the 2023 Saints after signing Carr etc. Maybe you do that for Mahomes. The Saints went that far for Carr.