Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Just when you thought the Saints were struggling or not one of the top teams in the NFL Mickey and Sean worked hard to prove you wrong. After the pending cut of Ellerbe the Saints will again lead the league in dead money. Is it difficult to do? Not really, 65,000,000 in two years is ripe for the pickens.

Number one two years running. Way to go Mick. Nice work Sean. I like where your heads are at.


SP "I will never say never, but I don't think his condition will improve"

And that is why you hand the man a new contract.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Yea, it's getting old. This is the way he gambles in the high risk/high reward game. Other teams will take a chance on a player with off the field issues or players that just haven't been able to hold onto the ball, Payton plays the injury game. The only difference is that when he gambles it's with big money, not chump change.
Yes a few have worked out like Breaux, but he doesn't break the bank.
Far more players don't work out and they are the high dollar guys.
People wonder why we have so many injuries. It's like buying a new Range Rover off Craigslist and wondering why it continues to break down. 3 years after you get rid of it you are still paying for the parts you used to fix it.

Another reason why I think a 7-9 season may spell the end for Payton.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

There's no way Ellerbe's contract had that much dead money in it. I'm thinking it's Byrd's that did it. Either way, both needed to be gone.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

We have $13.1 million in cap space with an additional $3.2 million coming soon from Ellerbe's release putting us at $16.3 million. That doesn't include Orlando Franklin's contract because we don't know those numbers yet, but still... I don't see what the issue is.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

I agree that dead money sucks. The FO has made some bad decisions. But I'm sorry folks, the current trend for players is getting more and more of their contract guaranteed. This means that there's gonna be more and more dead money when the player doesn't work out or gets injured. It's the trend...we have to get used to it.

And like Chris said, we've got cap room, so I'm not going to let it bother me.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

The issue is leading the league in dead money. Doesn't matter how it happened anymore, it only matters that we fix it and keep it from happening again.

Ellerbie on its own doesn't bother me or hurt too much but you add a little here and a little there and it adds up.
There is no reason to pay top money for injured/injury prone players.
Deals like the Gallete fiasco are going to happen from time to time, you can't avoid situations like that but you can avoid getting stuck paying players who are injured and not on the team anymore.

We used to strike gold gambling like that. Brees and Greer turned out excellent for us but Sean and Micky have pressed their luck too much.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

But we have a lot of cap space (top half of the league after Ellerbe's cut) and the dead money isn't preventing us from signing anyone.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

It still keeps our hands tied. Wouldn't we have an even higher cap if it weren't for all that dead crap?

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Dude I see what you're saying. But in the end it's not tying our hands from signing anyone. I agree that it can be frustrating, but look at some of the "gambles" that they've taken. Gallette was a young up and comer that turned into a locker room cancer. Byrd was, at the time, arguably the most sought after FA on the market that ended up being a fluke. Browner was viewed as an aggressive savvy veteran corner who could come in and make an impact. And Fairley is injured and it may result in dead money. But he was coming off one of his best seasons as a pro and was re-signed.

All of those contracts ended up in dead money I believe. But they all or at the least, most of them, seemed like good moves at the time by the FO and fans.

Just bad luck IMO.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

It isn't just ellerbe, but we were already like 3rd in the league, but his dead money should push us to #1

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

65,000,000, I think

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

But like I said, cutting Ellerbe actually pushes us into the top half of the league in cap space. Why worry so much about the dead money? It isn't your money and it's not keeping us bereft of talent.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Because it is 65,000,000 dollars of wasted money which has led us to 7-9 and less talent. Stop pretending that 65,000,000 in two years hasn't hurt us.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

I don't think it has. Injuries have been the cause. We still sign any player we really want unless there's a bidding war in which case you can't win 'em all.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Dead money is getting better. Saints had $45million in dead money last season. It's down to $16 million this season.

Keenan Lewis $3,600,000
Jairus Byrd $3,400,000
C.J. Spiller $2,500,000
Nick Fairley $1,490,000
Paul Kruger $1,400,000
Brandon Browner $1,300,000
James Laurinaitis $1,200,000
Brandin Cooks $1,104,264
Garrett Grayson $366,584
Luke McCown $250,000

Next season everyone but Byrd drops off the list.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Some teams avoid dead money by keeping the deadbeats on their payroll. I would much rather cut ties, eliminating all non-guaranteed monies from the cap. If you have a player who isn't producing you are wasting the roster spot and wasting non-guaranteed base pay. Dead money has never stood in the way of the Saints signing any player. With the rapidly rising cap level the dead money isn't anywhere close to being a burden as some of you make it out to be. Early estimates on the 2018 cap has it around $180 million. Dead money is a drop in the bucket, especially considering it will only amount to $3.4 million.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Time to move on ... Please let the beatings end!!!

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

It is 16.8 mil this year and about to be 18.5 mil.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Of course it has. It was why we couldnt sign a guard last year even though we needed one. It was why we lacked depth last year in our secondary. Injuries are going to happen this year too. Matter of fact we have already lost two starters and we haven't even put pads on. The only way to handle that is depth. We have better depth this year, I think, but of course it has handcuffed us. If not then why did we end up 7-9?

The Patriots played four games without their starting qb and had a better record than we did through four games. The lost the best tight end in the league as well and won the super bowl. Of course 65 mil is a problem

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

And the worst part is you look at the nick situation. Just stupid by our front office again. They seem unable to learn their lesson

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

We could have had all the cap space in the world last year but when you have your top SIX CB's end on the IR you are likely going to have the league's worst pass defense. There wasn't anyone available that all the money in the world could get.

And you keep throwing out this $65 million figure. This isn't the past. Dead money is not an issue THIS year nor will it be an issue anytime in the future. The Saints had four major bad personnel situations that accounted for 90% of that dead cap. In the past. Deal with it. Move on. It is pointless to continue to dwell on something that is no longer an issue at all.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

It would have only been stupid if they could have foreseen the future. If his new issue had not arisen then it would have continued to be praised.

But tell me, you have been pleasantly, um, un-pessimistic recently. Why the sudden doom and gloom again all the sudden?

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Apparently dead cap prevented us from having the kind of CB depth that could survive losing our top 5 CB's. Because, you know, teams without a lot of dead cap have 8 or 9 starting caliber CB's.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

I think the OP is overrating the dead money problem. The dead money isn't a problem, it's just a potential symptom of the real problem - losing too often. Yes, we would be better served at getting our dead cap totals down in the future, but in reality is a small part of a bigger equation.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

And if it weren't for dead money we could have had better depth at CB. Who knows, Had we the cap space we probably would have had different and better players there to begin with. Payton has said we need to get better at CB for years. ONE reason we haven't is dead money.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

They tried getting better players by spending money. That turned into Browner, Byrd and Lewis that in turn turned into dead money. Is it the chicken or the egg?

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

No doubt...65,000,000 is a lot of lost money.

I think we have more talent now, but this was just a terrible job by our coach and front office. two years in a row we lead in dead money. It is crazy. grant it, the situation does looked to be good here on out, but a lot of wasted time for Drew from this. Saying anything else is being disingenuous.

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Is there anything left to the horse to beat on?

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

we just came out of a season were 1/3 of our cap was not on the team. Dead money is a killer

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

It does appear to be.

Hey, spk! Can we finally bury the damned horse and move on? You have seriously beat this topic into the ground.

https://vintage.ponychan.net/chan/fi...2208106839.jpg

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

Well the horse would be dead if it had stopped last year. Since we are num 1 again, let's bring her back on out for another ride

Re: Hook, Line , and Sphincter
 

And it is keeping us from doing what?

Can't you understand that people around here are getting tired of your incessant droning over the same subject over and over and over again? What are you trying to accomplish? Are the next 200 times you bring it up going to be anymore meaningful than the last 200 times?