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The NFL is about to change.

The practices, games, broadcasts, interviews -- all of it will be different. The best we can hope for is that, with all the oddities, everything remains recognizable enough that a return to normalcy won’t ever feel too far off no matter how weird things become.

But there won’t be a quick fix to the financial situation, which will either result in one massive hit or a cap that remains flat for several years. This obstacle will need to be navigated by all teams, and especially ones like the Saints, who manage the salary cap with the idea that it will increase each year.

So, how does New Orleans find its way out of this situation? Glad you asked.

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The Saints currently have $250 million committed to the 2021 salary cap, which would be a problem if the cap grew another $10 million from the $198.2 it sits at today. But if it were to drop $70 million that would cause significant issues, and a solution would be hard to find. 

If the cap stays flat, getting from $250 million to $198.2 would not be too tricky – especially if Drew Brees retires. Here is a look at a handful of moves the team could make without cutting anyone.

(Update: The cap is said to be settling at $175 million. The information below now reflects this new figure.)

Brees retires. Cap savings: $13.5 million

Convert Cam Jordan’s $11.9 million base salary and $1.9 million roster bonus into a signing bonus and add a voidable year, so the hit gets stretched across five seasons. Cap savings: $11.04 million

Convert Michael Thomas’ $12.6 million base salary, convert it to a signing bonus and add two voidable years to his contract to stretch it across five seasons. Savings: $10.08 million

Extend Marshon Lattimore and Ryan Ramczyk to backloaded deals. The two players are due to count a combined $21.28 million against the 2021 cap. New Orleans can easily cut that number by $10 million, if not more, by heavily backloading the contracts and placing roster bonuses in future seasons to keep the initial signing bonus lower. Savings $10 million

Convert Terron Armstead’s $10.15 million salary to a signing bonus. He already has two voidable years in place on the cap. This maneuver would allow the hit to get spread over three seasons. Cap savings: $6,766,666.

Those moves would leave New Orleans about $13 million over the $175 million cap. Several other moves could get made like turning the base salaries of Taysom Hill ($10.72 million), Janoris Jenkins ($10 million) and Andrus Peat ($9 million) into signing bonuses. Those three moves would put the Saints under cap, while also accounting for the minimum contract that would have to take the place of Brees on the top-51 salary list. New Orleans would need to add a voidable year to Hill's deal to push half of his salary forward, but could spread it out even more if needed. 

The Saints could also save $6 million by cutting Nick Easton, and another $5 million by cutting Malcom Brown.  So, with a couple of these moves, as well as rolling over the $8 million the team has in cap space right now, it wouldn’t be too difficult for New Orleans to sign someone like Alvin Kamara (Update: he signed an extension) or Marcus Williams to an extension and retain Demario Davis, who is on an expiring contract (Update: he signed an extension prior to Week 1).

P.J. Williams, Kiko Alonso, Alex Anzalone, Craig Robertson, Sheldon Rankins, Jared Cook, Justin Hardee and Jameis Winston are some of the other notable players who will reach free agency in 2021. Depending on prices and how the lowered cap impacts player values, it will be difficult to retain many of them.

Making these moves would create a situation where New Orleans would have to get creative for the next four seasons with pushing some salary forward to maintain operating income, but that isn't new for this group. The point is, there doesn't have to be a massive bloodletting if the Saints want to avoid it. 

The problem then becomes about 2022, 2023 and 2024. But New Orleans can get creative to keep spreading the money out and pushing down the line if it wants. Tactics like using annual roster bonuses instead of signing bonuses which could later be converted to singing bonuses and prorated over time could help achieve this goal.

The point is, New Orleans has been manipulating the cap for years. This situation is manageable for however long they want to manage it. Perhaps the team takes the hit early whenever Brees retires to get it over with, but the Saints don't have to if they don't want to. However, dancing around the cap will be harder in 2022 than 2021. 

OLD INFO ON GETTING TO $120 MILLION

But getting to $120 million is a whole different story. Even after cutting Easton and Brown and restructuring Hill, Peat and Jenkins’s contracts, New Orleans would still be $45 million over that salary cap.

The only way to get to that figure would be by converting every dollar on the books with voidable years stretching out to five years for each player (the maximum a signing bonus can spread). And even that would not be enough.

Cutting the cap to that level is not a tenable situation for any team. Even if teams could get there without cutting a bunch of players, the future caps for everyone would be so heavily saddled by money that gets pushed forward there would never be any way out for any team unless each one eventually took a dead season.

How is that good for anyone? Fans will not be pleased with the product if teams are cutting all kinds of players, and feelings of resentment will probably linger forever if quality rosters get ruined by a dispute. The owners might not want to carry the weight of the loss of money from this season by essentially giving the players an interest-free loan they’ll pay back over the next several years, but that’s the only thing that makes sense here.

A flat cap also hurts because many teams, including the Saints, sign players with the idea that they’ll have extra space each year.

There will be some tough decisions to make with this roster, but after next year, if things don’t get too messed up creating space for 2021, there aren’t many commitments in place for 2022. But it is much better than the alternative and a manageable situation.