CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Agent's Take: Worst salary caps? Cowboys, Saints, Steelers lead way - CBSSports.com

2. New Orleans Saints

Salary cap overage: $16,653,767
Adjusted salary cap: $126,944,911

The Saints can make significant headway with their cap situation by releasing 32-year-old Will Smith, who is missing the season with a torn ACL. His release will take $11.55 million off the books. Safety Roman Harper was a rumored cap casualty in the offseason and $2.18 million of cap space will be created if the Saints part ways with him before his $650,000 roster bonus is due on the third day of the league year (March 13)...

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

In the offseason I remember hearing Paul Kruger almost signed with the Saints before signing with the Browns, imagine how horrid that cap would be. However that would be a scary front seven!

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Drew Brees has the largest cap number on the team at $18.4 million. His contract wasn't restructured this year and may be left alone again to avoid increasing his $26.4 million 2015 cap number.

remember this statement because i have a feeling when the FA market opens we need to post this response 100,000 times.

the only way i know to get around the deal is to make a completely new deal. anyone got any other tid bits of knowledge on this topic?

You have that and then there is the list of fA we need to deal with/replace in 2014


Malcolm Jenkins

Jonathan Vilma

Zach Strief

Brian De La Puente

Jimmy Graham

Parys Haralson

Charles Brown

Tom Johnson

Robert Meachem

Kenyon Coleman

Will Herring

Ramon Humber

Isa Abdul-Quddus

Joseph Morgan

Rafael Bush

Jed Collins

Luke McCown

Bryce Harris

Keyunta Dawson

Trevin Wade

Edit away but if you thought last season was fun you have not seen a thing yet. i still say the best way around a cap issue is deal with in the draft. trade and get picks for younger cheaper talent. cheaper being the prime word here. Pats have been doing it for years and getting away with it. even this year they survived.

live watch and learn. this will be a blast in 2014 :rolleyes:

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Resign Strief, Collins, Haralson, and Rafael Bush. Do whatever needs to be done to keep Graham. If that means tagging him, so be it.

Wouldn't mind to see the rest leave.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

X2 and keep McCown he is a decent backup incase Brees goes down

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

In my opinion, the only reason the pats have gotten away with it doing it for years, is the rest of the division sucks.

As far as your list IMO, Vilma is gone as a player, although he could be hired as a coach, Meachem is released, decent chance BDLP is gone as well.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Long list, but not nearly as bad as it looks.
Some guys will go, some tendered, some will have decide if they want to Saints, or take $200K more somewhere else: Collins, McCown, Humber, etc. We are not an old team, except for (gasp) Drew, so we will be a contender again next year, and these guys who occupy roster spots 45-53 will have to make a decision

Strief is a must sign, Graham will likely get tagged, and DLP, Brown, Meachem and Harris are cheap
Jenkins? who knows? nothing would surprise me

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Some of you think Graham will just get tagged but which tag is the real question IMO.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

I dont think Graham does get tagged,it will be cheaper to give him a deal with a decent signing bonus and push the money back a year or two

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

In Loomis I Trust

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

I'm not saying it's what I want to happen, but I think it will unfold exactly llike it did with Drew -- Graham will get tagged, he will dispute the tag (this time over whether he's a WR or TE), he will appeal, it gets decided in arbitration,THEN no matter how it's decided, he signs a new deal a few days later -- as if the contract was sitting in somebody's desk drawer all along waiting for a signature after the appeal.

Did Drew's dispute over his tag, have any financial impact on the actual final deal he ultimately signed? No, not really, it didn't, because he ultimately signed a deal, not playing UNDER the tag. So the tag number didn't really matter -- it was just something they had to square away, BEFORE he could sign ANY deal.

In Graham's case, it's just too much piles of money sitting on the table for BOTH parties, to NOT dispute it and see how it comes down in arbitration. It's a business.

There are also other teams and other players, who want to know how that particular arbitration is going to play out. It will set precedents for other players on other teams facing similar situations, and his salary will set the bar for other teams and TE's and WR's to match or exceed, the same way that the Brees deal sorta led immediately to big mega deals for Flacco and Ryan.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

How many teams other than the Saints have gone to the Super Bowl without Drew Brees since we paid Drew Brees 100 mil.?

It has caused more problems that it has solved.

Alaska

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Cut Smith, redo the math, and let's see where we are
Moore, Jenkins, Greer and Harper are likely cap targets

This site is great for contract info:
New Orleans Saints Player Contracts, Salaries, & Transactions

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

I hate the fact that a lot of you have Strief in your future we can find someone cheaper and better than this guy.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

??

Strief has been our best OLinemen this year by far.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Strief makes $2 mill and is our best OT. You can't replace everyone

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

I hate that a lot of people dog out Strief because they can't see how good he is because he wasn't a high draft pick or big-time free agent. The guy is a good player, if you want him gone you are dumb. Period.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

But I'm not ready to think about next year.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Graham is a TE, it's the only way he can be tagged. Tag him as a WR and he becomes a WR..... his records go away and we no longer have the top TE in the NFL, we have a WR with the 14th most yards.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

another way to look at streif is this

almost all your OT are free agents in 2014

who would you bring back to help plug any holes the OL may have in a pinch?

Strief is our #1 OT and has played very well as a starter. the rest i can not say the same for.

If i was the coach Streif is my #1 security blanket on the OL as a whole. OC OG OT name it. he plays both ROT and LOT very well. i would want to do everything in my power to get as many years out of him as i can. in a perfect world he plays for no other team and retires a saint. even if he spends the rest of his days as a saint as our #1 back up.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

true, but you know his snake of an agent is going to point to the percentage of times JG lined up as a WR and make a case
I think this one will be ugly, Drew Brees ugly

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Condon's 'teammate', BTW, is Jimmy's agent. Same company.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Glad you picked up on that...

Major clients give NFL agent Tom Condon a lot of clout

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

It's been tried before but I'm not sure to what success.

And there are the HoF implications. Jimmy Graham has a fantastic chance of getting in the Hall of Fame if his career is long enough and he continues to preform as he does as a TE. There is the old duck adage, if it's paid as a WR, played as a WR, and tagged a WR..... It ain't gettin in as a TE.

We know how he is played but this is a formal tag and will change things.

Re: CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Yes, there is some precedent, someone from St. Louis last year, and I believe some LB's that wanted to be tagged as DE's. This however, will be the biggest case.
End of the day, Jimmy is in the 4th year of a rookie contract. No one could have seen how great he would become, but bottom line, he has gotten screwed. Good business, bad HR. Let's just pay him.

CBS Sports Article Points Out Saints 2014 Salary Cap Challenge
 

Nahhh, I wouldn't say he has gotten screwed, he just out played his contract. Drew out played his initial Saints contract, and while people think a contract should change weekly based on how a player performs, it just doesn't work that way.

Players and teams want contracts because they both thrive on certain parts of a contract. The Saints get cheap TDs and Jimmy Graham gets paid when he drops passes or is hurt.

It could be fixed Beaty easily.... $x for a TD and $Y for a yard. Neither side wants that.

There is harmony and balance.... Will Smith has grossly under played his contract.