Yes, I meant to say 2015. Pretty sure you are wrong about it meaning we can't keep anybody. More cap room now or in the future is always a good thing because as you said you can backload things and renegotiate existing contracts. Grubbs for instance, you could extend his deal a number of years at a lesser cap hit and save several million dollars each year. Eventually it will come back to bite you in the butt, yes, but then you do what the Colts did, take the big hit in one year and do a full-scale rebuild.

The salary is not what comes back to bite you as you can cut a player and take no hit on that. Its these huge upfront bonuses given to get the player to agree to a restructure or extension that haunt you for years.


Look at Rogers signing bonus, he could agree to take league minimum salary and still be a 7.6m cap hit.
Aaron Rodgers Contracts, Salaries, Cap Hits, & Transactions

If Brady played for $1 this year he is still a 9.2m cap hit
Tom Brady Contracts, Salaries, Cap Hits, & Transactions

This is why I said it doesn't help us this year, the bonus to get them to sign a restructure this year will be added to their present prorated bonus from their last contract making it more of a problem.

The salary is not what comes back to bite you as you can cut a player and take no hit on that. Its these huge upfront bonuses given to get the player to agree to a restructure or extension that haunt you for years.

But it doesn't have to haunt you for years. It can haunt you for only one year. That's my point. The Colts did this for years and years, pushing back and renegotiating deals. Then they bit the bullet, took a huge dead money hit, got rid of all that in one year, and the next season they went 10-6 and had the most cap room in the league the following offseason. When the time comes, the Saints are going to have to do the same thing.

You don't put that bullet in the chamber unless your going to rebuild and you have lost hope on your present team and coaches.

I was always kinda cross on how the restructuring thing worked. Good to know.
So the best chance we have is seeing some vets take a pay cut this year?

.....or if your star QB is on his way out and you know you'll never be competitive without him, so why not tank that season anyway and prepare to come back with a vengeance. I see that being the scenario when Brees retires. Until then, it's not so difficult to keep your top talent to ensure the team remains competitive while that window is open.

Now, where did you pull 8m cap increase?

They changed the number, it said 7.8 or 7.9 million when the story was first posted.