Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

He was average at best only produced 2 double digit sack seasons better run stopper than pass rusher

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Harris at RT... Lelito at OC.

Our CBs did fine without Greer. 4th best passing D tells me we have some talent there. That being said i wouldn't mund a CB in the first round.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

All four of them were great for us at one time in their careers. They helped take this franchise places it had never been before. Even thou it was time I still sad to see them go. I wish them all the best, except if they sign with the Falcons.

Who Dat!

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

We could sign him when ever we want to, we just signed Dawson to an extension.

We won't though. If you look at Greers contract, he didn't need to be cut to gain near 3m in cap space, all he had to do was agree to a lower salary.

It appears he himself chose to hit the market.

The numbers:

If Greer played for vet minimum (10 years) he would have made roughly 1.46m in 2014, and reduced his cap hit from 5.8m to 2.875m an estimated 2.9m in relief. Cutting him only saved us 2.6m in cap space.

So cutting him was not the teams choice, and he could have easily restructured for less, he wants more money.

We did not gut Greer to resign him for less.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Presently we are 3.7m under the cap.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Its a good start but we still have to sign Graham, Strief, DLP, Bush, a Kicker, Meachem or Morgan, Haralson, Collins, Harris...

I expect a few more surprises pretty soon.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Should we expect Lance Moore or Pierre Thomas to be the next cap casualty?

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I'm hoping we're trying to restructure most of the remaining high priced guys. Which is fine as long as it doesn't hurt us more down the road.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I think the easier cuts have been made, the rest may be a restructure or go scenario. We have a lot of higher salary lower bonus scenarios where a cut in salary or extension with resturcuture would help.

Brees - 18.4m cap / 10.7m salary
Evans - 11m cap / 6.8m salary
Grubbs - 9.1m / 6m in salary
Sproles - 4.2m cap / 3.4m in salary
Colston - 8.3m cap / 5.5m salary
Bunkley 6m cap / 4.4m salary
Moore - 5m cap / 3.1m salary
Thomas - 2.9m cap / 2.9m salary

If each took a 1m salary cut, all would still pull roughly 2m in salary for 2014 but it would free up 8m, +3m in space from previous cuts and we have 11m in cap space.

Not sure how this will play out, I know if I am Loomis I have my schedule book for the next two days bringing them in 1 at a time and give them a choice. "Help us lower our cap, or we will help you find a new home".

Be patient, we still have a month to get under the cap and that is only for the top 51.

2014 may just be the season where 25% of the jerseys change names.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

He slowed down these past couple of years but Smith was a solid player and a leader on the defense.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I was just about to offer that... most of those players could take a 1mil hair cut or more. Sproles and Thomas being the only two I would be ok staying where they are. Sign Jimmy and then get us 2-4 vets to come in and fill some wholes / upgrades and move on the the draft.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Will Smith career has been a roller coaster, and I have to ask just how many defensive leaders have we had? Every time someone leaves or is in danger of leaving he is labeled a leader.

Will Smith
Johnathan Vilma
Scott Fujita
Curtis Lofton
Scott Shanle
....
..
..


They were all on the same team at the same time. We had a crap load of leadership for the worst defense in 2012.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Not defending any of the aforementioned guys, but I would put a bulk of the blame on Spaggs.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

The Raiders. :rolleyes:

Oakland Raiders beat writer Vic Tafur said it is possible the team could show interest in veteran SS Roman Harper, who was released by the New Orleans Saints. However, he said he really could see the team showing an interest in DE Will Smith, also released by the Saints. Smith has a history with Raiders head coach Dennis Allen - See more at: Raiders | Could show interest in Will Smith - NFL Hot off the Wire

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

reunited with Young and Porter

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I am not sure Will Smith will have a next chapter.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

In this list of names cut only one made sense arguing to keep, and that's Greer... But I looked at it like this.... It came down to two names, in a battle for what essentially is the 4th CB spot..... If both of the names finished the season with season ending injuries, then I have to access who I have confidence can return from the injury, and who's younger..... P. rob is younger, cheaper, and has a better chance of devouring from an injury like this

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I thought there was a stipulation that did not allow a team to immediately resign their own players because the teams could use it to renegotiate contracts. Must be thinking of something else.

Hopefully Greer is leaving on a good note. With other vet CB's already available, his price will go down dramatically, and maybe he'll come to his senses later.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Lol at the amount of people that don't understand football. There are so many people on saints FB saying this was a huge mistake and the defense will be nothing without these players.... Lawd have mercy

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

That is not a renegotiation, its a long expensive way of restructuring.

Why would a player resign with a team that just cut him? If he is willing to stay at a lower price he just takes a salary cut like Will Smith did. Cut/resign serves no purpose but to cause a dead money issue if there was a bonus.

Essentially in Greer's case there is nothing to gain from a cut/resign, and I don't think there is anything to gain from a cut/resign for any players.

Now, if you cut a player and for some reason resign him later in the season it is not because you want to lower his cap hit. Once you cut him, he no longer has an NFL contract and the only way you get him back is if none of the other 31 teams sign him to a contract.

In Greer's case any sort of cut/resign coats the team 2.65M in dead money for that season. If you resigned him for 1/2 of what he was making before thats 2.6M + the dead money of 2.65m you saved your self a whopping $500k.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Who is sleeping under a rock? Vilma wasn't cut.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I expect everyone of those to be resigned. Strief may be the only one out. I imagine he will want 3-5 mil a year.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

No surprises there. Three of them were on IR and already replaced.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

So who might be next?

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Lance moore, meech will also walk

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Meachem is a free agent.

We won't save any money.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Hell! Dis ain't d'football, dis be bidness, man! Dat be da **** I don't get! I do have a feeling the folks in charge have a pretty good idea as to what they're doing.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

I can count on zero hands the number of people that have said that.

Please point out just one of these idiots so that we can throw rocks at them.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Meachem walked before, and came back home where he's most successful...

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

And he's dirt cheap.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Yep, Smith and Vilma were gone 5 minutes after they were hurt. They knew it, and we knew it. Harper and Greer were only slightly more surprising.
Those 4 players, combined, played in a total of 20 games (being generous w/ JV's cameo vs the Jets) and had 70 tackles.
We can probably find a way to replace that

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Seems like getting under the cap created more questions than we had when we were over the cap...

I figure it played out like, and is playing out close to this.

Sean looked at Rob and said - "Who do you not need to keep". Rob is a do it sort of guy and it took him about 7 minutes to compile his list. Mostly because we did fine with out all 4 being on the field, and I believe Rob Ryan is tired of having so many players on IR in his career. They are all 8+ year vets as well.

Harper missed games 3-9
Vilma played in 1 game
Smith missed the season
Greer missed the last 8 games

Payton got the list, made the cuts. Now he pines. But he isn't pining because of the salary cap, he is pining because he knows in his head he has to reformat his offense and rebuild it. What got us here, isn't going to get us there.

He needs a T and a C for the line at least.
He needs at least 2 WRs to compliment Colston/Stills.
He needs a place kicker.
He wants to keep Jimmy Graham but knows what that will mean.
He wants to keep all of his running backs but knows he cant, that luxury is gone.

I see Sproles, Graham, Ingram, DLP, and Moore, not returning.
For offense draft (in no particular order), WR, WR, C.

Thomas stays and takes on the Sproles roll (Probably why PT had so many receptions this year, testing), while K. Robinson, Collins, Cadet take on RB duties.

He is under the cap so he has plenty of time. Ingram, Sproles, Moore will be shopped for draft picks.

The dawn of a new age approaches. It has to, we will do no better next year if it doesn't.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Nope, not true. Fujita was gone in 2010 and Vilma and Lofton didn't play much together because of Vilma's suspension and injuries. Lofton was Vilma's replacement. Will Smith was asked to do many things in his tenure, put on weight to be a run stuffer, drop weight to be a pass rusher and he did all of that. I think Smith had a nice career with the Saints.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Correct, Lofton was the only oddball out.

He was asked to do many things, and he did them. But not successfully.

Will Smith spent the season on IR, never made a home game to support his team on the sidelines. I know because I have him on my Instagram and I can show you what he was doing on game days. That is no leader, nor is it a 10m a year player.

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

Happy to see Will Smith gone, he should of been cut after Lynch ran through the entire defense back in 2010. Just wish someone was still around to try and prove why he was so great just for the laughs it would bring me. Anyways really only the Greer release surprises me but when you are going to make that much while on IR for a team strapped for cash, it really isn't a surprise

Re: Saints begin cap cutting(Greer,Harper,Smith,Vilma)
 

We must be about to make a few huge signings on defense. If Graham doesn't return ( he will ) well have even more cap space to improve in different ways ... Defense and Reciver preferably ... I'd Never guess our defense could be there with seattles and San frans yet behold ... We're two guys on defense away from having the best defense period ... My guess , Talib is one , the other can be acquired via draft ... Michael Sam would fit nicely ... He definitely would have something to prove we could steal him ...


I want baptiste in the draft ... And a monster at end or lb

Historically defensive players pan out better when drafted higher than offensive stars

Hell why not trade up for Clowney if he falls past 6 ? Let's build defense , I doubt Drew has 2 off years offensively