Have Saints chipped away at future cap costs? We took a deeper look

The New Orleans Saints have aggressively saved money this offseason in a way we haven’t seen much before.

Their only “splash” signing in free agency was a one-year deal with defensive end Chase Young. They released safety Marcus Maye and worked out pay cuts with four veteran starters. They have yet to touch some of their bigger contracts, including those of Alvin Kamara and Taysom Hill, which means they’re eating more of those cap costs now instead of pushing them into future years. And they have even cut back on their usual amount of void years on some of their smaller contracts.

What does all of that add up to? Well, they appear to be slowly but surely catching up on the massive salary-cap overages that have hovered over this team since COVID blindsided the cap across the league in 2020-2021.

I did a deep dive into the Saints’ cap situation in 2025, 2026 and beyond. And I won’t pretend it’s a rosy picture. There’s still enough dead money on the future books to make your head spin. But I genuinely do see a path for New Orleans that doesn’t require the team to ever “tear it all down” beyond the level we’re seeing this offseason.

🆕: Auditing Saints’ Round 1 picks since 2015📌: Do the Saints need to make a decision on Marshon Lattimore before the draft?📌: What has to happen for the Saints to NOT pick an offensive lineman in round one?🔗: https://t.co/St4JL5WmVY pic.twitter.com/MU1HRnDFc5— NOF (@nofnetwork) April 16, 2024

General manager Mickey Loomis said earlier this year he anticipates it will take about two years of this approach to catch up. It certainly helps that the NFL’s salary cap should skyrocket along the way. We already saw a jump of nearly $30 million this year to $255.4 million per team. Conservative estimates project the cap to rise somewhere around $275 million per team next year and to keep escalating from there.

The Saints’ lack of young superstar talent, unfortunately, will also help them catch up with the cap.

The biggest reason they got into this current “mess” was because they had so many superstars to re-sign in the late 2010s — QB Drew Brees, WR Michael Thomas, LT Terron Armstead, RT Ryan Ramczyk, CB Marshon Lattimore, DE Cameron Jordan, LB Demario Davis and RB Alvin Kamara among them. They don’t have many $20 million-per-year extensions looming these days.

At the same time, New Orleans has made it a priority to remain competitive. Not a bona fide Super Bowl contender, obviously, but more like a team that needs everything to go right to win 10 or 11 games. But the Saints didn’t let their cap situation stop them from signing quarterback Derek Carr to the richest contract in franchise history and the biggest free-agent deal in the entire NFL last year.

We’re certainly not giving the Saints too much credit for that approach. Existing in the middle of the pack for the past three years has led to a level of fan apathy we haven’t seen since the early 2000s. But for those worried the Saints are “mortgaging their future” just to stay mid, this offseason has been a decent compromise.

Regardless of which approach you prefer — staying competitive or starting completely over — the only way to make either strategy work is to draft better than the Saints have in recent years to rebuild the young talent base.

Here’s our breakdown of their future cap situation:

2024: About $10 million under the cap

The Saints currently sit about $10 million under the salary cap. They will only save about $800,000 in cap space when Thomas' and Jameis Winston’s salaries come off the books on June 2 since they’ll be replaced by two cheaper salaries in the top-51 accounting. On the flip side, they’ll only need about $3.2 million in cap space for their draft class if they stick with their current picks.

All told, that would put them around $7.6 million under the cap if they don't make any other moves. But they will surely add a few more veterans to the roster and come close to using all of that space throughout the year as injuries pile up and replacements are needed.

If they do wind up trading cornerback Marshon Lattimore, they’ll need to create a ton of space to absorb all of his dead money (a massive amount if it’s before June 1, a lesser amount if it’s after June 1). But then he would be off the books in future years, so that would basically be a long-term wash. They would actually save money in the long run if they don’t have to pay his $13.79 million option bonus this year, even though it would feel like a painful cap hit in the short term.

If right tackle Ryan Ramczyk retires after June 1, his cap number won’t change for this year since he already lowered his salary to the $6.5 million that was guaranteed for this season. He would be replaced by another player’s $800,000 cap charge in the top-51 accounting though.

🆕: NFL Draft: Ranking every Saints pick since 2015Who are your top 5 Saints draft picks since 2015?https://t.co/Ff87FhXR16 https://t.co/Ff87FhXR16 pic.twitter.com/Pp25u3z43M— NOF (@nofnetwork) April 17, 2024

2025: About $50 million over projected cap

There are a lot of variables here that make it hard to pinpoint an exact number. Some players heading into the final years of their deal in 2024 (Paulson Adebo, Pete Werner and Juwan Johnson) might be extended in the meantime. But for purposes of this exercise, we will count them all as free agents in 2025. We also will count Kamara as a 2025 free agent since his current contract is designed to be blown up next year when he is due $25 million.

We will also assume Ramczyk is no longer playing in 2025, that Lattimore is still with the team and that Young earns the full $7.99 million in per-game incentives that were included in his contract (which would be well worth the money). We are also adding in the projected Year 2 salaries of the 2024 draft class.

When you add all of that up, we project the Saints’ total cap costs of their top-51 salaries plus dead money at $326 million heading into 2025 before they do any contract restructures.

That would put them right around $50 million over the projected cap. Still a burden, of course. But about $40 million less than their projected overage of $90 million heading into this offseason.

They could easily carve out that space through simple restructures, pushing $30 million alone into future years by restructuring Carr’s deal. Obviously, that’s just “kicking the can down the road” some more. But you can still see a little progress here.

Our projection includes dead-money hits for eight players, assuming none of them are re-signed (Ramczyk $23.066M, Kamara $10.138M, Young $9.603M if he earns all 2024 incentives, Thomas $9.19M, Winston $7.3M, Johnson $3M, Tanoh Kpassagnon $1.786M and James Hurst $522K).

Chances are, the Saints will re-sign at least some of these players, which could either increase or decrease their cap costs, depending on how their deals are structured.

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2026: Only 14 players under contract

A lot will change by this year, including the possibility that New Orleans will pick up the fifth-year options on Chris Olave and/or Trevor Penning. But as of today, there are just 14 players currently under contract in 2026:

Carr, Lattimore, Erik McCoy, Cesar Ruiz, Carl Granderson, Zach Wood, Bryan Bresee, Isaiah Foskey, Kendre Miller, Nick Saldiveri, Jake Haener, Jordan Howden, A.T. Perry and Charlie Smyth.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting Carr is scheduled to make a non-guaranteed $50 million in 2026. So you could essentially count him as a projected free agent that year, as well, since he will almost certainly have to be extended or released.

We also counted up the dead money for every other player who would hit the books in 2026 if they never signed extensions. We added in the projected cap costs of the 2024 draft class (nine picks scheduled for now, bringing the total to 23 players under contract). And we added in the minimum of $50 million that would need to be carried over from restructures in 2025.

The total is $263 million in 2026 cap charges with Carr’s salary included (or $230M if you remove Carr’s salary and count all of his remaining dead money instead).

That number will grow significantly once you add in 28 more salaries to reach the top-51 accounting (several of whom will be new free-agent signings or future draft picks that make more than the minimum salary).

But the future is somewhat of a blank slate that can be greatly improved if they hit on those free-agent signings and draft picks.

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TOTAL REMAINING DEAD MONEY: $255.7 million

Last but not least is another way of looking at the Saints’ long-term cap situation: total remaining dead money.

I think this is by far the biggest misconception when fans and even the smartest NFL analysts talk about the cap. People always associate “dead money” as a charge that hits the books when a player is released or is traded or retires. In reality, that dead money hits the books the moment a player receives his first signing bonus, and it gets spread out over the next five years for accounting purposes.

Teams can move that cap charge around, counting a lot upfront or dividing it equally over future years. Teams can constantly restructure it every year, putting off the cap charge for as long as possible (see: the New Orleans Saints). But the total always equals the exact amount a player was paid.

So here is a look at the total remaining dead money the Saints will have to account for in 2025 and beyond for every player on the current roster. In other words, if the Saints decided to cut every player on their roster after the 2024 season and start fresh with 90 new players next offseason, this would be all of the dead money that still needs to be counted against their cap:

QB Derek Carr: $50.13M (includes guaranteed $10M roster bonus)

CB Marshon Lattimore: $31.67M

DE Cameron Jordan: $23.99M (including $1.5M in guarantees)

DE Carl Granderson: $21.53M (including guaranteed $7.73M salary)

G Cesar Ruiz: $20.05M (including guaranteed $9.15M salary)

LB Demario Davis: $17.21M (including $4.25M in guarantees)

C Erik McCoy: $16.38M

S Tyrann Mathieu: $14.8M (including $3.5M in guarantees)

QB Taysom Hill: $11.12M

RB Alvin Kamara: $10.14M

DT Bryan Bresee: $7.25M (including guaranteed $1.86M salary)

WR Chris Olave: $6.13M (including $3.33M in guarantees)

DT Nathan Shepherd: $5.78M

OT Trevor Penning: $4.5M (including guaranteed $2.63M salary)

DE Isaiah Foskey: $3.16M (including $1.48M in guarantees)

RB Jamaal Williams: $2.34M

TE Foster Moreau: $2.1M

DT Khalen Saunders: $2.1M

S J.T. Gray: $1.44M

WR Cedrick Wilson Jr.: $1M

CB Alontae Taylor: $605K

LS Zach Wood: $600K

RB Kendre Miller: $556K

G Nick Saldiveri: $421K

QB Jake Haener: $352K

S Jordan Howden: $163K

WR A.T. Perry: $88K

LB D’Marco Jackson: $79K

P Lou Hedley: $1,668

K Blake Grupe: $834

TOTAL: $255.7 million