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Jonathan Vilma and Will Smith took a combined cut in pay of nearly $10 million in order to stay with the New Orleans Saints.

I just got a look at the official details of the contract restructuring by the two veterans, and these aren’t the typical instances where base salary is converted to signing bonus. These were flat-out cuts in pay.

Vilma had been scheduled to earn $4.8 million in base salary. After the restructuring, he’ll earn only $1 million in base pay. He also had his workout bonus increased from $100,000 to $200,000. Vilma originally had been scheduled to count $8.633 million against this year’s cap. His new cap figure is $3.833 million.

Smith’s cut was even deeper. He saw his base salary dropped from $9 million to $3 million. Smith’s cap figure initially was scheduled to be $13.9 million; his new cap figure is $8.502 million. The Saints did not alter Smith’s contract for 2014, when he’s scheduled to make $10.4 million in base salary and have a $13.9 million cap figure.

Again, straight pay cuts -- especially ones this large -- are rare. But Vilma and Smith were in rare circumstances. They went through a difficult 2012 with the bounty scandal and the Saints stood by them. Now, Vilma and Smith are returning that loyalty.

Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith took massive pay cuts to stay with Saints - ESPN

FinSaint

$8.5M is still a lot of cap to be used on Smith at this point in his career, but it's certainly a lot better than $14.5M. The fact that they didn't alter any details of his final year could mean that this will be his last year with the Saints.

$3.8M for a - at least realtively - healthy Vilma is acceptable, but again it doesn't really open up a huge amount of cap space for other roster additions.

Since these were flat out pay cuts, one has to be appreciative of the fact that both Smith and Vilma were willing to wrok with the team in order to stay with the team - at least for now.

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

Danno

Vilma played hurt in 2011 and some of 2012.

He should be in better health than he's been in years.

A healthy Vilma is certainly worth 3.8 million, and the WILB is not much different than the 4-3 WLB he played last year. He also played in GW's 3-4 sets too.

He's no stranger to the 3-4 at all. He just isn't best suited for that SILB he had to play in New York. But no worries, Lofton, Hawthorne and possible Martez Wilson have that spot secured.

Jamessr

I'm glad Vilma stays a Saint

Crusader

Pops to Smith and Vilma for taking a paycut. They are still handsomly compensated thou.

xan

I'd like to have my pay cut to those levels.

I guess that means we have room to sign Graham and Bushrod? How much will be left over of the 10mil cap relief? Can we get Brees to drop 5 mil so we can have a competitive team?

Jamessr

You must be kidding? How can you ask a guy to take away from his family. If he did that he'd only be left with the 30 million he made in San Diego, the 60 Million from his 1st Saints contract and 17 million for last year.
How can anyone expect him to ever survive off 107 million ?!
Please rethink what you just suggested

FinSaint

Don't forget about Chamberlain!

Rugby Saint II

That's right. He could play better than last year........maybe staying healthy is a possibility this year.

FinSaint

Well the injury last preseason was caused by fierce tackle and there really wasn't anything Chamberlain himself could've done to prevent it - he doesn't have a history of injuries, so I believe he'll be fine.

It was a huge shame, because before that injury happened he was looking like a stud on the field.