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Should the Saints restructure Drew Brees' contract? No.


With the help of our Saints Radio Statistician Brian Duvall, we explored the idea of restructuring Brees' deal to provide the Saints with some much needed salary cap relief. Brees' cap figure for the 2013 season is $17.4 million, meaning that's how much of his pay the Saints have to include when calculating how much he counts against the approximately $120 million cap for NFL teams.

The Saints are roughly 10 million dollars over cap. The deadline to get under the salary cap is March 12th, the start of free agency and the new league year.

The Saints are reportedly trying to restructure contracts for defensive end Will Smith and linebacker Jonathan Vilma. While those moves would provide some relief, it's not going to fix the cap situation the Saints are in now. On the surface it looks as though a restructure of Brees' contract would do wonders for the Saints.

Not so fast!

The Saints could convert $8.8 million of his $9.75 million base salary for 2013 to guaranteed pay out... making his 2013 salary at the 10 year plus veteran minimum of $940k. That move would drop the cap number by $6.6 million. Pretty nice right? Wait, there is a significant catch.

The $8.8 million would then be spread out over the remaining 4 years of the contract, making his 2014 cap hit an eye popping $20.6 million. In 2015 it would balloon to $28.6 million, and in the final year (2016) his cap figure would be $29.6 million. Each year it grows by 2.2 million for a guaranteed pay out. Under this scenario Brees would not lose any money, but it could increase the chances of him getting... yes ... released... gasp! See where I am going here? The Saints are pretty much stuck with that record breaking deal of a year ago.

The salary cap is not expected to expand robustly until 2015, when new TV contracts kick in from the new CBA. If the Saints restructured Brees' deal as proposed in this scenario, he would account for 30% of cap space for the next 2 years. OUCH! That is if they restructure his 2013 base salary. Furthermore, if the Saints restructure Brees' 2013 base salary, and convert it to guaranteed payment, it would very likely increase the chance Brees would NOT finish his career in a Saints uniform. Ultimately this would alter the course of the Saints for the next four years.

So the question now becomes: Get rid of Smith and Vilma if they don't restructure?

Yes.

Safety Roman Harper carries a hefty price tag at $7.1 million for 2013. The high profile veteran is likely on his way out the door without restructuring the Brees contract. It's either that or you say good-bye to Brees in 2 years when he's 36 and has a cap hit of 28.6 million in 2015.

You see?

The Saints pretty much have no choice but to absorb the 17.4 million price tag for Brees. It doesn't look like a restructure is likely.

What's the Saints best move at this point?

Don't even touch the Brees contract. I'm not the numbers guy that Mickey Loomis is, I'm not trained in that field, but I'm sure he'll find a way to make it work.

However, from this radio guys chair it doesn't look like the Saints can get relief from a reworked Brees deal.

WWL - AM870 | FM105.3 | News | Talk | Sports - Kristian: Restructure Brees? Not So Simple, And Awfully Risky

Shoe.

Loomis is one of the best. I'm confident that if there's a way, he'll find it.

Danno

PAY THE MAN, even if it destroys our team.

foreverfan

So... do we draft his replacement?

AlaskaSaints

So goes Drew, so go the Saints.

We get to be benefactors of DREW.

Victims of DREW.

Have another baby, bud. They can split it equitably.

Alaska

AlaskaSaints

I was against his greedy contract from day MINUS ONE.

It is the kiss of death of any team. Just ask him.

Everyone has to suffer except DREW. Makes me sick.

Alaska

TheOak

What is the alternative? Chase Daniels @ 2m a year? People would rather that? We could cut Drew and pick up Sanchez for cheap.

In this league your either a have or a have not. You either have a Brady/Brees/Manning/Rogers or you are trying to get one.

burningmetal

I think you already know the answer to that question. Of course we'd all rather Brees. We all wanted him to re-sign. We just hoped that maybe we wouldn't have to mortgage the rest of the team to do so. But that hope turned out to be very unrealistic.

I think the Saints will find a way to continue to be successful in the future, but it will be a much different team before long. In the end, there does not appear to be one single player out there who is willing to take less for the better of the team. They go for straight market value.

After a 60 million dollar deal (that's not even including however much he made in San Diego, which still would have been far more then any of us are likely to ever make) you'd think that maybe an 80-85 million dollar contract the second time around would be sufficient pay. Ah, but athletes don't think like that. They feel "disrespected" if they make less than someone else.

If only we could all be so hurt.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

burningmetal

As for the article, what can I say? Thank you, captain obvious.

How many people does this guy really think didn't already know that we'd take a hit down the road, if we restructure Drew?

TheOak

And I can appreciate the "hope", but *****ing about it a year later seems to be some people's only reason to live.

I am obviously one of the few that believes two things, I would NEVER intentionally lower the income that comes into my home and takes care of my family, and the only person that is responsible for his contract size is the person that gave it to him.

The guy selling coffee at $10 a cup is not evil, the guy who bought it is an idiot. The Saints did not HAVE TO pay him anything, they could have moved on.



We shall see how it plays out. Denver seems to have done just fine paying Manning, Flacco is about to score huge, Rogers will do the same.... We are not the only team that feels its worth paying a super star QB 20% of your cap.

There is a lot of judging going on about a man based off of what someone else pays him.

http://www.sportscity.com/nfl/salaries/