FinSaint

Ellis' and Shanle's contracts are up, so they are automatically out of the picture.

I'm not sure how the re-structuring affected the guaranteed money on both of Smith's and Vilma's contracts, so they might be too expensive to cut outright and too overpaid for some other team to be interested in a trade.

Utah_Saint

I'm not sure how the contrats of Vilma and Smith are counting against the salary cap. With neither counting against the cap, the Saints were 8 million under, but with both counting against the cap, The Saints were about a million under. Where ever that figure is between there, can be applied to next years cap.

BUT

they have lots of contracts that jump up next year. Most notably Drew's 7 million dollar increase, and there's quite a few more...

Brodrick Bunkley ($3 million salary jump)
Marques Colston ($3.3 million salary jump)
Jahri Evans ($6.5 million salary jump)
Jabari Greer ($1 million salary jump)
Ben Grubbs ($4.5 million salary jump)
Malcolm Jenkins ($1.2 million salary jump)
Curtis Lofton (only a 400k salary jump, for another $1 million cap hit in roster bonus)
David Hawthorne (same situation as Lofton, about $1 million extra cap hit in 2013 due to bonuses)
Lance Moore ($1.7 million salary jump)
Will Smith ($8 million salary jump)
Jonathan Vilma ($3 million salary jump)

As it sits right now, the Saints are more than $20 million over the cap for 2013.

Mickey's got his work cut out for him this offseason.

jeanpierre

Got to cut bait with the defensive line and go proven Free Agency...

Sedrick Ellis comes off the books after this season...

Will Smith scheduled to earn 9 and 10.4 next two seasons, with age and decline of play (it wasn't good to begin with) it's time to take the salary hit and move on...

Cam Jordan in his rookie contract would stay on...

Akem Hicks has a favorable contract and has shown some liveliness...

Martez Wilson can fly, he just needs development at DE now and has the contract for it - though he's better suited as a 3-4 OLB and if Spags doesn't stay, he may factor in a change in defensive philosophy to a 3-4 alignment...

Vilma looks done - his degenerative knee condition surely limited his ceiling...

Lofton has shown a lotta heart and has shown more flexibility in different alignments than expected...

Shanle may be done playing after his contract expires...

Hawthorne has gotta get healthy and on the field to eval...

Harper will be earning over five million in the next two seasons; regardless he's gotta go...

Jenkins probably should be playing SS or RCB; he lacks the leadership and awareness to run the secondary...

Greer can't play a full season...

Robinson seems like a one step fwd, two steps back career; he's made some terrific plays but seems like he's thinking too much and not just playing ball...

Johnny Patrick has staying healthy concerns...

Corey White has played like a rookie, jury still out...

It's not that my way is the right way, I just make the right way my way...

lee909

Them salaries do not make good reading.Graham needs a new contract soon aswell.Loomis has a lot of work on his plate getting shed of players and salary that don't look tradable.

FinSaint

The thing there is that Harper is still owed $6M in guaranteed money after this season, so when his cap hit for next season is $7.1M - it's hard to see a real benefit in cutting him and taking the cap hit. I wouldn't be against releasing him if the Saints could find a better player to replace him, with the remaining $1.1M, but that is very unlikely to happen.

But, I guess, there could be a team out there who'd maybe be willing to trade for Harper's ability to come of the line in blitzing situations - or his sack numbers alone - and that would be a much better option for the Saints.


One other problem with the salary situation is that the Saints need a new LT for next season, because Bushrod will in all likelihood be looking for a salary increase, although he shouldn't, and in any case they need an upgrade in that position. LTs don't come cheap, and the only cheaper option that comes to mind is to pick a rookie LT early in the next draft, but the Saints also need every single pick available to get defensive players.

It'll sure be an interesting offseason, and Loomis' skills will be tested once again.

"I'm not bashing people, I'm bashing their opinions because in my opinion their opinion is wrong" - Danno

TheOak

Salaries are MOOT when cutting and getting rid of players, Guaranteed money stays like herpes.

lsutigerfan

This is who I want to draft. Bjoern Werner

Jamessr

Wait... we're actually paying these guys on defense millions of dollars?
WTF that makes it even worse... I thought this was volunteers to compensate for Drew's paycheck

Rugby Saint II

With the salary restrictions for draft picks we should know about what each player should cost us that we draft. Cut or trade every player that is sub par.
With the money left over hit free agency hard. Sign a couple of impact players and surround them with draft picks who can learn a system and grow.

TheOak

Hopefully we take into account how well the draftee played defense in college in a ZONE!