Well, Ellis is another piece of the puzzle.

His cap hit for 2012 seems to be $7.575M, but according to my calculations there's only about $800K left in the guaranteed $19.5M of his contract, so the Saints could free up a lot of cap space if they were to cut him.

On the other hand, if the Saints' FO and Brees are able to come to an understanding in regards to the structure of the long term contract, where his initial cap hit would be fairly low while still including a lot of guaranteed money - Ellis' contract comes of the books next off-season, which would allow for a bigger cap hit for Brees in 2013.


Jabari Greer is another player who's salary will come of the books after this coming season, so that'll be another $6.15M of cap space for Brees' contract.

The Saints could also try to get him to sign an extension with a restructure, which could keep him with the Saints for couple of additional seasons while bringing down his cap hit for this coming season.


The bottom line is that there are ways of making Brees' contract work even if he is given the highest overall value contract in the NFL and a big amount of guaranteed money to go along with it - it's all about the structuring of his contract and of all the other players' contracts in relation to his annual cap hits.

That's the type thing I think the Saints want to avoid - restructuring just about every contract - by just unloading some dead weight. I agree with what you said 100%, it's just my opinion that they won't go that route, but I could be wrong.

I like Vilma, but if I were the Saints I would cut ties with him now and stop worrying about what the league will do to him. He isn't near the player he used to be, so I think restructuring him is a waste of time and energy.