The money has already been used. And already is not available for other uses. It's simply when it is accounted for. The total is the same regardless of when it is applied. Your credit card example isn't valid because it has interest which increases the total amount. Prorating salary against future caps is like a no interest credit card which lets you pay it off later when your income has increased.

A better example is purchasing a car for cash or using a zero interest 60 month loan for the same total sales price. Financing at 0% is always better. It gives you greater cash flow and allows you to earn interest instead.

But, that's just my take on it. It is what it is. As long as I have Saints football to watch in the Fall I'm happy one way or the other.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.