Saints offseason preview: So much work just to get under the salary cap

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

It has become an annual rite of spring, a challenging feat of salary-cap wizardry, figuring out how the New Orleans Saints will get themselves back under the salary cap for the start of the new year.

It’s not unusual for teams to be over the cap in an offseason, but the Saints are incredibly high this year, about $83 million over, which is at least $30 million worse off than any other franchise trying to get back under in the next month.

It can be done, as the Saints have shown in recent years, annually getting their books right largely by borrowing cap space from future seasons. They’re not alone in that strategy — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for instance, borrowed heavily to maximize their window of trying to win with Tom Brady, and are still paying for that.

Before we get into the Saints’ offseason ahead and the potential cap moves they’ll need to make just to get under the cap, we should talk about “dead money” — that’s cap space devoted to players no longer under contract. If you cut a player who has received a bonus pro-rated for cap purposes, the team takes on dead money. If you use void years to lessen the initial cap impact, you pay the price with dead money when that contract expires.

The Saints had a manageable $35 million in dead money in 2023 — about 15 percent of the salary cap, but a necessary evil the way they’ve attacked the salary cap. Right now, they’re on the books for $28 million in dead money for 2024 from expiring contracts, but that could get much, much higher. If tackle Ryan Ramczyk has to retire due to a lingering knee injury, that would mean $35.4 million in dead money, though the Saints can designate that as a post-June 1 move, which would split the damage between $16.5 million this year and $18.8 million in 2025. They would also shed his $17 million non-guaranteed salary for 2024, so the move frees up a much-needed $10.5 million this year, though at…

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Publish date : 2024-02-13 19:53:44

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