Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

You are only telling half the story. While bonuses and restructures in NFL contracts are better than a credit card in that they are interest free, they are worse than a credit card in another feature. Unlike credit cards they have a feature common to some archaic business loans where the lender is able to 'call in the debt' and subject the borrower to a massive lump sum balloon payment.

A better example would be a 0% interest credit card with this lump sum balloon payment feature. Since the credit card offers 0% interest you put all your expenses on it, including your Spectrum cable monthly bill. Over time, Spectrum steadily raises its prices until your monthly bill for TV and cable is $250 a month. Tiring of the this aging company, you decide to cut the cord and switch to Netflix and Hulu for a lot less. But then you find our your credit card has this lump sum clause. They say that you are at your current credit limit, and when you are at your credit limit, if you cancel an ongoing payment, all of your balance attributed to that ongoing payment service hits your minimum payment due for the next month. They calculate and find that 24 months of Spectrum payments are on your balance, finances at 0% interest, so if you cancel spectrum you will owe $6,000 minimum payment due next month. So, you keep Spectrum, claim its wonderful and well worth the $250 a month, and continue to put more Spectrum bills on the card, bragging about its 0% interest. Meanwhile you are broke forever because all you can do is kick the can.

Mickey Loomis's cap management strategy is like one of the streets where you need to make a u-turn and every intersection has a no u-turn sign forever. We can keep anyone we want and add a few others, but we can't get rid of anyone. We stuck with continuity with DA because we knew we couldn't manage the roster turnover associated with most coaching changes. Now we are about to have Kellen Moore coaching Sean Payton and DA's roster because we can't get rid of many players. Its all a trap. If you can't make a u-turn you don't just go in the wrong direction, you make two rights and then a left, even if it takes some time. We need to cut Carr!

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Your opinion, of course. I don't believe in cutting a player that has already been paid for future work when you don't have a better option available. I do not believe we have a better QB option than Carr at this point in time. Maybe we draft someone that can contribute more toward winning and replace Carr next year.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Carr has not been paid for future work so this does not apply to Carr. Carr is owed a lot of future money for past work. The $40 million dead cap associated with cutting Carr is all prorated from his 2023 and 2024 seasons when his base salary was reduced to $1 million per year and the rest was put on the credit card.

What cutting Carr saves us from paying is his 2025 pay. $30 million 2025 base salary never comes due if we cut him. $10 million 2025 roster bonus is 'guaranteed but subject to offset' which means if we cut him, we get the money back as long as he signs elsewhere for at least $10 million. If all he could get was $10 million he would likely pull a Russell Wilson and let us foot the bill, but realistically he can probably get $20-25 million from a team like Pittsburgh or Tennessee, or even us if he was willing to listed to reason, watch the tape again, and take a true pay cut.

What you don't believe in is cutting a player before they are paid for future work, if it would mean having to pay off our debts for their past work, even if that player has been mediocre and is earning more than any other team would pay them. You believe in throwing good money after bad.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Guarantees prorated is for money earned for both work already done and for work yet to be completed. And when that individual is mediocre by definition he is also one of the top 16 or so at his profession in the entire world. Would I like someone in the top five instead? Hell yeah! Would I want someone outside of the top 16 or so instead? Hell no. And I can't see why any coach would rather have an inferior player instead either.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Prorated money is not in an meaningful sense for work yet to be done in any league year beyond the league year it is paid to the player. All of Carr's current prorated money was paid in the 2024 league year and earlier, for work already performed in those league years. Only if we pay him more money are we paying for work in the 2025 league year and beyond. When we convert Carr's $30 million salary for 2025 into a $29 million restructuring bonus and $1 million salary and immediately issue his $29 million check that he immediately deposits in his bank, that $29 million is for work to be performed in the current league year, the same work the salary was for. League accounting rules may allow it to be divided up among the 2025-2029 cap years as long as Carr remains on the roster, but we are not for any practical purpose paying Carr that money for 2029, we are paying it for his services in 2025 and will make another decision in 2026 for his services them, that will in no way be able to effect the check Carr was issued in 2025 that he already deposited.

As for your Mickey Loomis cap philsophy, I get that you cannot understand doing anything but maxing out the credit cards. But it happens many others can see how many you don't spend can be rolled over to future cap years, and then you can spend much bigger when you have a better shot to win it all. Also, QB is inarguably the most important position on the field. A QB that isn't in the top 5 or 10 rarely wins it all and when they do it require incredibly line play the Saints are nowhere near having. So it makes perfect sense for a team that finds an average QB who isn't showing growth that could make him great decides to keep looking elsewhere to find a great QB even if they risk losing more short term.

The very thing you can't imagine, dropping a good but not great QB to search for a better one, is something that the following NFL teams have all done in recent years: Vikings (Cousins), Raiders (Carr), Broncos (Wilson), Giants (Jones), and Jets (Rodgers). In every case the teams turned to backups who were clearly even worse, or rolling the dice in the draft immediately or a year later. Rodgers may be the best QB the Jets have had in decades, and they had the same record as us, but they are moving on because good isn't great. QB is the most important position on the field. Its not where you settle.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Well that was my point. I understand keeping him this year and having him play under his current contract What I don’t want them to do is restructure his contract so he gets paid less this year whilst adding guaranteed money for future years to him when he’s gonna get cut.

Kicking his can down the road and keeping the team financially bound to him while he’s no longer here is stupid.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

It's all semantics. If Carr plays for us this season his salary plus guaranteed roster bonus and previous prorations total $51.458 million for 2025. That cannot be done with our lack of cap space. All we CAN do is to convert his $30 million base salary and $10 million roster bonus to a signing bonus prorated to his voidable years. We're paying him exactly the same amount either way. By converting it frees up the 2025 cap so we can become compliant. We are not paying him any more nor is he playing for anything any more either way. We're simply accounting for that pay in a future period where those funds make up a smaller percentage of the growing cap than it does in 2025. It's a win/win if you are planning on keeping him for 2025 either way.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

Both versions of keeping Carr pay him $40 million more than cutting him, in the long run. Many cap experts have shown how we could cut Carr, it would just require taking a year off of big free agent adds and restructuring some smaller pieces instead that won't carry anything like the $60 million dead cap Carr will to move on from in 2026.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

It doesn't matter if we want to field the best QB available. You don't want him. Having the best competitive option means nothing to you. That's clear.

Re: CARR “STARTING” AS OUR QB NEXT YEAR?
 

It seem likely BS AI GPT Chat has a repeating interger infection error known as “LDS” which was developed in a secret “TDS” lab in Atlanta. I heard on good authority that the funding for said lab came from “The Big Man” RG.