Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

The Saints currently lead the ENTIRE NFL in dead money, at $40,405,183. Next up in second place is the Cleveland Browns at $28,385,236, followed by the Eagles at $22,771,484, the Falcons at $21,351,290, and the Lions at $17,693,872.

So keep in mind -- the second place "dead money" team, has less than 75% of the dead money that the Saints have, and the Falcons in fourth place are much closer to roughly only 50% of the dead money that the Saints have. And everyone else is waaay down from even that.

For those who may not know, "dead money" refers to money under the NFL salary cap that is money that can't be spent because it was paid to a player who is no longer on the team. It is the penalty for teams paying players up front.


Question: are these the teams that we want to be keeping company with? Do they share the winning culture and winning ethos that the Saints are *supposed* to have? Are the Browns known for their roster moves, sharp general managers, and deep talent? Or are they a laughing stock of the league? What about the Eagles and Falcons? How are they regarded, and how are their typical records, year in and year out recently?

I also picked some random teams that most people generally seem to think are pretty good. How does their dead money situation look?



Patriots - $11,920,902
Panthers - $9,422,199
Steelers - $9,357,135
Seahawks - $9,201,408
Cardinals - $3,752,606
Denver - $10,920,718

The Patriots, whom most people admire, have about a quarter of the dead money that the Saints have. The Panthers and Steelers have even less. Every one of these teams has beaten us at some point in the past few years.

In fact, all four teams who played in the NFC/AFC championship games last year, have less dead money combined, when all four are added together, than the Saints.

Their salary money is going to players actually on the field each week. . Do you think that gives them a competitive advantage, at all ?

The Raiders, who defeated the Saints on Sunday by scoring 22 points in a single quarter, had $4,129,983 in dead money. That is 1/10th the amount of dead money that the Saints have. They also had injuries to their offensive line, just like we have had injuries to our secondary, they had second string guys in there, filling in, plugging holes, but somehow -- for whatever reason -- their team managed to plug in guys and keep going, without the whole game plan falling apart.

Just wondering what people thought. Is there a correlation between the dead money we are paying for players not on the field, and what we see with our eyes in the games? Or are we not supposed to be concerned about it?

Thoughts?

NFL Salary Cap Space | Over The Cap

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Ooooh asylum is going to blow a gasket. About this lol

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

LOL..right..we are all stupid for worrying about these things. These things mean nothing..wait for it..it's coming.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Good thread.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Repeat after me. 2017,,,,2017

2017 dead money flip flop will help for once.
projected cap space? $22,295,484

2018
projected cap space? $60,768,559

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Terrible. We could almost pay 2 MORE Drew contracts with that.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

$40,405,183 in dead money ?? And we wonder why we can't compete.

This franchise is a mess.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

I know it's sort of a separate issue, but insult to injury is that we never seem to lose guys to free agency the normal way and get the compensatory picks the other teams have. We always begin draft day with one strike against us.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Or locked up Josh Norman.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Of course I meant per year. I think he's at what...23 million. It's just crazy.

Look I understand sometimes mistakes are made. And maybe that's why they are cutting bait with Spiller. Maybe they're trying to trim the roster even if these guys are paid a lot of money. But man I hope they learned a lesson.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Does anyone think it's funny (sarcasm) that Evans is counting for over $5 million of dead money and he is on our active roster

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Yes he is like a salary cap zombie!

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Dead Money (Dept for services not rendered) is going to be the down fall of this franchise. 40 million.... FORTY MILLION! Maybe Loomis isn't the genius we think he is. Why does our O&D lines suck? Why does our ENTIRE Defense suck? Because we can't afford the good players. I'm sorry, but having one great/good player (Drew Bre$$) isn't going to win jack squat! I'm not dooming and glooming about the season after one game, but this team is getting worse and worse every year. It is getting hard to watch this team play. It feels like we are filling roster spots with "Well, he won't cost us much" type of players.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Finally everyone is awake on this issue! I welcome you all with open arms... ;)

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

25%... 25% of our cap space is dead money. Man that's hard to wrap my head around. What kind of a way to do business is this?

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

In what business do you not get fired of it. Its one were the very top guy is not of sound mind thats where.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Once again, cap space did NOT play a factor in not signing Norman at all. Saints had tons of cap space available with a deal Brees was ready to do at the time.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

You know where it started going wrong.It started in 2012.What happened in 2012?Mickey became head of operations of the New Orleans Pelicans There's no way one man could run two franchises they both suffer as we have been seeing. It'd hard enough running one team. Until that changes both teams are going to suffer.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Everyone please take the time and read this so I don't have to continue to repeat. $37 million in dead money in the current year means nothing. The Saints have over $9 million in 2016 cap space. The dead money isn't keeping the team from signing anyone. The fact is that there is no one to sign.

Dead money means even less next year where the total dead money figure stands at a paltry $7.8 million and with the usual converted roster bonuses and 2016 unused cap carry-over, coupled with the next Brees extension and a Cam Jordan restructure will leave the Saints with $55 million in free cap space.

Those are REAL FACTS.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

It doesn't matter when "it" went wrong because "it" is in the past. Dead money and cap in general is no longer an issue going forward. These media dolts that keeps spouting off about it don't have a clue how it works.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Only dead money in future periods means something. Dead money in current and past periods does nothing to prevent a team from doing business.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Dead money matters asylum if they had half of the 40 at the beginning of free agency this year they would have been able to. Sign quality guys in postions of weakness.they got that 9mill 3 days before the start of the season so of course no one is available

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Tell me one single good defensive player that dead money kept us from signing? The Saints signed the top rated defensive lineman free agent in the off-season. The Saints signed the top rated free agent LB in the off-season. The Saints attempted to sign (with money not being the issue) the top free agent CB in the off season.

This team is not getting worse. This team is greatly improved over last year's team and that is even with losing two of our top defensive draft choices to injury prior to the start of the season. THAT has nothing to do with dead money. Losing Breaux in the first half of the first game has nothing to do with dead money.

I repeat, tell me what outstanding defensive pieces the Saints missed out on because of dead money.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

They signed the best quality players at the defensive positions. You can't sign players that do not exist. And that $9 million could have been even more if needed earlier, so that means nothing. The $37 million in dead cap means nothing other than players the money was spent on couldn't produce. It did not stand in the way of anything and THAT is a FACT.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Your nuts man but you go ahead keep your eyes closed if you want

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Not nuts at all. Answer me. The Saints signed the best free agents at their positions in the off-season. Name ONE top defensive free agent that dead money kept the Saints from signing? Just one.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Malik Jackson oliver Vernon Damon Williams Danny trevathan I can go on if you want

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

damon harrison sorry or janoris jenkins ,bruce irvin

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

That's not true at all. Malik Jackson, Damon Harrison, Olivier Vernon, Jerrell Freeman and Danny Trevathan were all better D-Line and LB prospects. A team like the Giants had an atrocious defense and actually had cap space so they were able to sign a couple of those guys. Of course we'll just have to wait and see if the investment was worth it for them.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Brent Grimes. And we could have brought Chris Ivory back.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

those guys would have helped better than fairly launitis and Roman harpers we ended up with even if we only gotten one or two of those guys it would have been nice why didnt we oh wait i know we had 35 million in dead money we couldnt use becuse we screwd up with bad deals we have to pay for

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

We could have signed any of those if we needed them. We had already picked up Fairley and Laurinaitis who were rated higher and didn't expect to see Anthony and Rankins go down. Dead money did not stand in the way if the Saints had wanted them. Name ONE player that DEAD MONEY kept the Saints from signing.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

and why did they have cap space of wait for it NO DEAD MONEY

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

Fairley and Laurinaitis were not rated higher by anyone. Fairley's on his 3rd team in 3 years and was considered a lazy underachiever. Laurinaitis was considered physically declining and bad in coverage.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

thank you

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

From what I saw last week against the Cows... money appears to have been well spent. Harrison, Hankins were disruptive against a very good O line.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

i dont know about you but if we got half of the guys i mentioned id be looking for playoff tickers and booking my time off

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

That's a lot of dumping in one thread...

http://data.whicdn.com/images/177631421/superthumb.jpg

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

I'm not saying the Saints could anticipate all these situations not working out, but paying out all this guaranteed money is hurting the culture of the team.

When it comes to getting our quality younger guys signed, the message has been sent - that it is all about getting that big payday and then hey whatever happens happens enjoy your money bro. It's not about having a two-way street, that we will pay you decently but if it doesn't work out then you're gone and so is the money.

It doesn't foster a culture of accountability, when we are so cavalier about throwing our money away to players who are no longer contributing to our team, or worse, contributing to someone else's team rather than ours and we are paying them for it. Yes, I understand there is some of this in sports, it's a nature of doing business and other teams have dead money too. But taking that practice too far is having its ramifications and it is happening right now.

Re: Dead Money & Winning/Losing Cultures
 

He's bad at tackling too, not just bad in coverage

Couldn't count on one hand the amount of times he got drove back by running backs last week.

But hey, at least we didnt move the first saints rookie LB that showed some promise to make room for him.....wait a minute...yeah we did.