2025 Offseason Plan - How to Fix the Saints Salary Cap

Mickey Loomis has a choice this offseason. If he is a Falcons fan he has only one choice, keep doing what he had been doing from Drew Brees final years until 2024, kick the can down the road to 'win now' hoping for 7-9 wins. If he is a Saints fan he has only one choice, build on the 'soft rebuild' of the 2024 offseason with a shock and awe burn down the house rebuild, now that its clear that a Saints team that spent more than any other team in the league in 2024 and only won 5 games with increasingly aging and injury prone players has seen its window closed.

Some say the Saints cannot cut Derek Carr. The dead cap hit would be too much they say. This is not true. The Saints can cut Derek Carr but if they do, they will have to go full rebuild. That is what they should do. Here is the simple math.

I am using the numbers current as of 01/07/2025 for the 2025 cap year from: https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/new-orleans-saints

My numbers are rounded to the nearest 0.5m for simplicity.

You can also use the cap calculator ( https://overthecap.com/calculator/new-orleans-saints ) to model similar numbers, although the 'restructure' vs 'extension' function is confusing. If I understand it correctly, the restructure function will only reallocate current year salary and roster bonus over up to 4 remaining years on the contract, but will do less if less than 4 years remain on the contract. The extension function can do the same but add void years to make sure there are 4 remaining years to spread out the money, which is more accurate of true restructuring potential, but adding void years with the cap calculator is very complicated.

Projected 2025 NFL Salary Cap Limit: 276m

Saints Current 2025 Salary Cap Obligations: 343m

Saints Salary Cap Deficit: 343m - 276m = 67m

Saints Moves to Get Under the 2025 Salary Cap:

Post June 1st Cut Designations:

30m - Cut Derek Carr

11m - Cut Cameron Jordan.

Saints Salary Cap Deficit after Post June 1st Cut Designations: 67m - 41m = 26m

Saints Retirement Moves to Get Under the 2025 Salary Cap:

18m - Ryan Ramczyk agrees to reduce base salary from $18m to $1m at the start of the offseason, then retires June 2nd. This saves 18m overall, with 17m saved immediately. Since he retires June 2nd, all dead cap impact hits the 2026 salary cap not 2025. It is not guaranteed Ram would agree to this but seems likely since he seems bound to retire anyway and the $18m is not guaranteed at all. This is a medium estimate because the Saints may save less if nobody agrees to this type of retirement method, but may save more if other players like Davis, Jordan, Mathieu, Hill, etc agree to the same arrangement.

Saints Salary Cap Deficit after Ram retirement: 26m - 18m = 8m

Saints Pre-June 1st Cuts:

2.5m - Khalen Saunders

2.5m - Foster Moreau

2.5m - Cedric Wilson Jr

1.5m - Jamaal Williams

0.5m - Taysom Hill (this cut saves next to nothing this year but saves money down the road, a mid 30's bruiser who will miss more and more time does not make sense on a rebuilding team, could save $10m with post-June -1 designation but we are only allowed 2 of those)

Saints Salary Cap Deficit after Pre June 1st Cuts: 8m - 9.5m = 1.5m Cap Surplus

Saints Restructures with Added Void Years Where Needed:

7m - Erik McCoy

6.5m - Cesar Ruiz (not the best elite player but we can't afford not to do some restructures)

5m - Carl Granderson

5.5m - Demario Davis (I believe he is declining and don't want to kick the can but we have to kick some small cans to afford the bigger cuts and save giant money long term with cutting Carr and Jordan, plus Davis is an unselfish leader who took a pay cut in the past unlike Carr and Jordan)

5m - Tyrann Mathieu (same comments as for Davis)

2.5m - Pete Werner

2.5m - Nathan Shepherd

2.5m - Rashid Shaheed

1.5m - JT Gray

1.5m - Alvin Kamara

Saints Salary Cap Deficit after Restructures: 1.5m Surplus - 39.5m = 41m Surplus.

Why $41m Under The Cap is a Good Goal

This $41m surplus number is key. $41m is also how much the Saints save by making designating Derek Carr and Cameron Jordan as Post June 1st Cuts. However, this money does not become fully available until June 1st, and the Saints have to be under the cap at all times. With these moves they can get under the cap even without this. Of course, with rounding errors and with Rams $1m minimum salary still on the books, the Saints would be very close to the salary cap limit. It's also important to remember that the projected 2025 salary cap is not finalized, and if the cap is a bit higher than expected it will add a lot of flexibility, while if it is lower than expected it may not be possible to cut both Carr and Jordan, or we might need to restructure Jordan to afford to cut Carr (still a good option to save $30m long term by refinancing $12.5m).

If the Saints were in danger of exceeding the salary cap limit at any time, there are a few other tricks they could employ.

1. More players could agree to reduce their base salary to the minimum and retire or be cut or traded June 2nd. This is not guaranteed but could be possible with Davis, Mathieu, Jordan, or others.

2. There is a way to temporarily save more money than a traditional restructure, as seen with Marcus Lattimore last offseason, and a player has nothing to lose by agreeing to it. All salary due except the vet minimum base salary can be converted to a guaranteed bonus payable sometime between June 2nd and the start of the league year. The players gets their salary guaranteed and they get it before the season all at once, not game check by game check. But instead of a normal restructure where the converted money is allocated over the the current year and the following 4 years, so 20% of that money still hits the current year, 0% of the money hits the current year because the money has not been paid out yet, so this method can temporarily save 25% more than a traditional restructure to get the team through June 1. If the Saints converted all of my proposed approximately 39.5m of restructures to this method, they could save another 10m.

3. If Derek Carr signs elsewhere, the offset language in his $10m guaranteed roster bonus would net the Saints cap relief up to $10m depending on the deal, but likely at least 1.5m if he signs anywhere.

4. The Saints could do some additional nickel and dime restructures that save a small amount of money which could add up to several million.

5. The Saints could trade players on rookie contracts for draft picks to save a few million.

6. The Saints could trade veterans with guaranteed salary, even up to and including giving away draft picks like the Texans did to get rid of Brock Osweiler to the Browns, allowing additional cap savings because the money that is guaranteed is paid by another team.

7. Restructure Jordan if absolutely necessary, or offer Jordan a small bonus now to delay most of his salary to later in the offseason when he can be cut or traded then, allowing him to pick a contender to play for after the draft.

What These Moves Would Mean:

Using the overthecap calculator above to approximate these moves with slightly less efficiency (their restructure is not easy to add void years with) the Saints would be $38m under the 2025 Salary Cap and $110m under the 2026 salary cap. However, the Saints would have basically zero money to spend in pre-draft free agency. All our free agents would be minimum salary free agents, undrafted rookies, journeymen looking for any chance to compete, etc. Rattler would be the QB1 unless we draft one. We would sign all our draft picks after June 1 most likely. After June 1 and signing draft picks, we could have ~30m to play with but given we would not be in a good year to compete, it would make sense to save most of that money, perhaps only spending the smallest bit like 10m to get some low cost veterans. This would leave us $20m under the cap in 2025, which can roll over. In 2026 where we project to be $110m under the cap with these moves currently, this $20m can offset the $10m each to sign our 2025 and 2026 rookie classes. That means we really project $110m under the cap in 2026 with these moves. That will be enough money to add meaningful pieces to compete more in 2026

Although these moves may seem to amount to 'kicking the can' on a few players one could argue we don't want to become tied to long term, they actually create virtually zero risk for 2026. Demario Davis and Tyrann Mathieu's contracts are already set to void in 2026, so they are set to retire already, and the dead cap is already built into the $110m under the 2026 salary cap number. Only $1.5m is being kicked down the road on Alvin Kamara and if he is not worth his $11.5 salary at age 31 for 2026, the Saints could actually save $2m cap by cutting him and eating the dead cap, plus save much more down the road. If Ruiz continues to play mediocre and the Saints have better options, kicking $6.5m down the road on his contract would take the option of cutting him in the 2026 offseason from a $5m savings to a $1.5m cut, but overall this is chump change.

The other restructures on players the Saints are likely to keep longer term, like McCoy, Granderson, etc, do amount to a debt and borrowing mechanism, but with $110m under the cap in 2026, it should be the last year the Saints need to do it, and the cycle of increasing debt will stop. The strategy is to borrow what we have to and pay off the biggest highest interest credit cards first. Marcus Lattimore was one of those cards. Derek Carr and Cameron Jordan are the next two. If we stay the course, the Saints could be one of the furthest teams under the salary cap in 2026 with up to $110m to spend in 2026 free agency and one of the highest picks in the 2026 draft!

If Mickey Loomis (or another GM if he is fired) will do what is right and rebuild he may be redeemed and can later retire as a respected GM who realized the error of his ways. If he doubles down on the delusion that 'we are close' he will destroy the Saints and forever be remembered as the man who created the Enron of the NFL as the Saints go winless with the highest payroll in the league.

PS, in theory Carr's contract is guaranteed for injury so if his left non-throwing hand was not recovered by March, he could not be cut. However, this was not supposed to be that scale of injury, he could probably play now if we were contending, and I think any idea that his hand injury could last that long is BS. If Carr contends his injury is not recovered by then I think the Saints should challenge it, investigate whether other activities are placing undue stress on the hand, fine Carr for conduct detrimental to the team, and attempt to void his contract and recover signing bonus. If the league and courts side with Carr, that would change everything, and the best move would be to restructure Carr and cut or trade every other aging vet that does not make sense in a rebuild like Jordan, Hill, Davis, Mathieu, Kamara, etc. Alternately, the Saints could offer a team with salary cap to spare a draft pick to take Carr's salary like the Texans did with Osweiler.