Has Loomis Mended His Ways? Or Will Kamara Rob The Piggy Bank?

The 2024 offseason is a critical time for the Saints to build a better future. The Saints went into this offseason in a historic cap mess so bad that they could not even do a real rebuild if they wanted to, the dead cap hits from any significant amount of cuts would have put them in violation of the salary cap due to money deferred years into the future hitting the cap immediately. Cutting players like Derek Carr, Marshon Lattimore, Ryan Ramczyk, or Taysom Hill who were not worth their current contracts and were aging and injury prone was simply not an option, the dead cap hit from one such more could have put the Saints at the limit of the salary cap with no more contracts available to renegotiate. The best the Saints could do was move on from a few of their older or cheaper albatross contracts and aging or injury prone players, such as they did with Michael Thomas, Andrus Peat, Jameis Winston (I love him, but a pricey backup makes no sense in a rebuild), and Marcus Maye. And beyond that the best things they could do were to 'not pull a Loomis' in the offseason and not trade away a bunch of future draft picks, not make a major move up in the draft for one player when they need youth and depth, and not manipulate the cap to make a 'win now' splash in free agency that would at best amount to treading water with a perennial .500 team that is not one free agent away from a ring. Miraculously, Loomis and the Saints have somehow avoided all these pitfalls this offseason.... so far. And somehow, they have even put a silver lining on the annual shotgun restructures they have had to do with aging and injury prone players to get under the salary cap. Loomis worked some real magic this time and got Demario Davis to take a generous pay cut despite his still elite performance which will soften the blow if father time ever catches up. He also got Ryan Ramczyk to take a major pay cut, which is great. Even though Ramczyk won't play, cutting him or having him retire would have been a massive cap hit that the Saints may not have been able to absorb under the salary cap, or if the Saints did manage to absorb the cap hit they would have have been forced to restructure everyone else, leaving the Saints no power in any other negotiations with players they had to restructure like Davis and Kamara. Getting Ramczyk to agree to take a pay cut helped the Saints cap situation a lot. The Davis pay cut in particular was great for the Saints, because in the past any 'restructures' the Saints did with actual productive players were never true pay cuts, just expensive loans mortgaging the future. And the Saints big splash in free agency? 1 year and $13 million with Chase Young, less than 10% of the money blown on Derek Carr. And with substantial injury guarantees built in. I might not have spent a dime, but sometimes fans do want a new player to be excited about, and a dime sure beats a dollar if you need to rebuild.

As big of a critic of Loomis as I have been, I have to admit that this offseason he has not done anything so bad. The worst front office this offseason has probably been the Atlanta Falcons, who made the high stakes gamble of betting everything with a mega contract on a 36 year old QB with a worse-than-Matt-Ryan playoff history coming off a torn ACL. This was a win-now, longshot, damn the future move. Then to win now they hired Raheem Morris, a retread who has had two previous coaching opportunities where he was known for not winning. And this was instead of pursuing proven winners like Belichick or Harbaugh, or gambling on a young innovative head coach. Then after blowing up their salary cap to get an injury prone veteran, the Falcons were expected to at least free up their top draft pick to get an immediate difference maker to help Cousins win now. Instead they doubled down on torn ACL's and got a rookie QB with the #8 overall pick who tore BOTH his ACL's in college. And they instantly alienated their brand new starting QB. I know the Favre to Rodgers to Love story made the news. But Cousins was not talking retirement or acting disgruntled or losing a step, he just joined the team on a record contract. And there is another precedent that is more easily forgotten. The Arizona Cardinals had just signed Kurt Warner to a big deal when they doubled down on QB depth and drafted Matt Leinart #10 overall. Two years later the Cardinals lost a close Super Bowl matchup. Haloti Ngata was the next position player taken after Leinart and could have been a Cardinal along with a modest draft haul for trading back two spots. The Cardinals likely lost a ring by drafting Leinart. And Leinart was not even a reach with two blown knees, Penix was considered a 2nd round prospect, its like if the Cardinals had passed on Ngata for Kellen Clemens. And the Packers wasted two Aaron Rodgers MVP seasons getting close but not close enough when they drafted Jordan Love instead of helping Rodgers with an elite playmaker. And that was only the #26 pick and Love did not have two blown knees. And if somehow Penix is great and never is injured again? Well then the albatross of Cousins contract will doom the team until Penix rookie contract ends and his cap hit explodes? Its a lose-lose propisition.

Enough about the Fail Clowns. So far Mickey Loomis has not blown it this offseason. While has not done exactly what I would have done, he has not done the opposite. I might have taken more oline in the draft, and even considered trading players like Adebo or Olave for oline. I think we need lots of help there. I might have tried to squeeze in one or two extra cuts or very low return trades to accelerate the rebuild a little more, perhaps given some aging players a chance to win a ring elsewhere. But what Loomis has done this offseason is much more reasonable than the disaster Derek Carr contract or the disaster trade with the Eagles that effectively got the Eagles standout rookie Jalen Carter and much more for Trevor Penning. It seems that Loomis may have mended his ways. But admittedly, I have difficulty trusting this. Paulson Adebo could decide he likes money and stop talking to the coach until we trade him to the Eagles for a 5th round pick like we did with Chauncey Gardner Johnson. We could suddenly trade next years 1st round pick, what I basically consider the fire insurance on the house because its the only thing that pays us back if other things go wrong, and instead try to win now with a trade for Branden Aiyuk or Davante Adams. Chase Young could have 3 sacks in the first few games and we could instantly erase the injury protections in his contract and sign him to 5 year $150 million extension with $90 million fully guaranteed only to watch him get injured and make cryptic posts on twitter about being unhappy.

Then the most immediate mistake waiting to happen involves Alvin Kamara. Last year, Cameron Jordan went on Oprah and Hallmark Channel and The View and cried and hugged everyone and knitted quilts and told the whole world how humble a man he was and that his only childhood dream was to retire a Saint and if only they would give him this wish of signing him to an extension that would allow that he would be forever grateful and dedicate his life to unicorns. Except the problem was the Cameron Jordan was getting very up there in age, showing signs he was starting to decline, and was already under contract for the following year for a generous sum. But the Saints front office fell for it hook line and sinker. They gave Jordan a big contract with large guarantee unheard of for an aging player on a team that should have been rebuilding. Then Cameron Jordan recorded only 2 sacks in 2023 for a cap hit of $17 million. Now Cameron Jordan is due to be paid $38 million by the Saints going forward even if he retired after 2025. His guaranteed salary, now converted to a signing bonus, was about $14 million for 2024 in the new contract, coming off 2 sacks. Thats $7 million per sack. But after the season ended, the Saints quietly let it slip to friendly press that Cameron Jordan was struggling with a twisted ankle during the season. So I am sure that as one of the older players in the league, coming off 2 sacks, he will be back up to 15 sacks again this year, because you know how speed does tend to come back and injuries dont at that age, and obviously a twisted ankle is the worse injury a player that age can have. Look, Cam Jordan is a great guy, he is one of my favorite players. But he likes money, and getting older and slower did not make him like it less, and thanks to the Saints front office he didn't have to, but Saints fans did have to like winning less.

This offseason I feared more of the same, but unlike Cameron Jordan's sorry act, Davis and Ramczyk actually took pay cuts and helped the team. But now Alvin Kamara is making noise in the media and finding sympathetic ears on Ellen and Good Morning America about his one true desire to retire a Saint. It is right out of Cameron Jordan's playbook. Kamara has the media eating out of his hands, saying 'pay the man', believing he is a pauper on a rookie contract who just wants to feed his family. The truth is that Kamara signed his current contract at the peak of his prime, a record contract, and is under contract for two more years. Kamara's contract is not guaranteed, but it is way above market for his performance the last two years and his age as a running back. Kamara has shown clear signs of decline, been suspended for a violent act, and never rushed for 1000 yards. Kamara's market value based on comperable players is approximately $7-9 million per year. It might have been twice that 5 years ago, but so was Dalvin Cook's and Ezekiel Elliott's. Overthecap.com valued Kamara's 2023 performance at $6 million and he is only getting older at a position where piers like Cooks and Elliott have seen their value go toward zero. Kamara is slate to make $12 million this year and $25 million in 2025, not including previously prorated signing bonuses that are also averaged over these years. Joe Mixon is two years younger than Kamara and has been more productive in recent years. He recently signed a 2 year contract at just under $10 million per year with $13 million guaranteed. Kamara's market value is less than Mixon's. And Kamara will make $12 million just this year. I like Kamara as a person, but I like his agent more as an agent, and his agent has taken the Cameron Jordan playbook and played it for all it is worth. If the Saints front office and Loomis are smart they can just say no to whatever Kamara and his agent are smoking. Honestly the $12 million salary this year to Kamara is more than generous in overpaying for a fan favorite. But if they are push overs they will see that Kamara has played the media and Saints fans heartstrings for all they are worth and give him a dumb extension like Cameron Jordan's. Then in 2025 the Saints can pay Kamara $15 million for 2 touchdowns and still owe him $38 million going forward. And this will mean a lot for the teams fate because this should be a 'prove it' year for Derek Carr. But if the Saints blow a ton of guaranteed money on Kamara, Carr won't have to prove anything, because once again the Saints won't have the space under the cap to even consider a cut, and Carr can even bank on that $50 million 2026 that everyone called a filler year that would never be paid out. Paying Kamara $15 million a year could mean being forced to pay Carr $50 million a year and an aging Lattimore $25 million for half a year when the Saints need a youth movement.

So has Mickey Loomis mended his ways? Or is the other shoe about to drop? Alvin Kamara's contract situation will tell a lot. If Kamara plays on his current deal or agrees to a big pay cut with no more than the $13 million guaranteed that Joe Mixon got, the Saints are trying to win. If Kamara gets the big Cam Jordan type deal he wants, its more of the same and Loomis needs to go.