The Saints’ journey to cap compliance is complete. They have moved under the $208MM cap, restructuring Marcus Davenport‘s deal to do so.
More than $8MM of Davenport’s 2022 $9.6MM base salary is now a signing bonus, per ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter (on Twitter). This created more than $6MM of cap space for the Saints, who are perhaps in pole position to add a rather hefty contract to their payroll.
New Orleans and Carolina have been mentioned as the lead suitors for Deshaun Watson, who thus far has only been willing to waive his no-trade clause for these NFC South teams. However, a Browns meeting is also on Watson’s agenda. The Falcons have entered the fray as well. Watson does not sound especially thrilled about a Panthers fit. Fitting Watson’s contract onto their payroll will be tricky, but the Saints have navigated winter cap issues for years. They cleared more than $100MM off their payroll to move under the 2021 cap.
Watson’s contract calls for a $35MM base salary in 2022; that amount is guaranteed. The Saints are clearly confident they can create sufficient space for the embattled quarterback, whose civil cases have yet to be resolved.
New Orleans completed a restructure similar to Davenport’s last year, moving much of Marshon Lattimore‘s fifth-year option salary into a bonus. Lattimore has since signed a long-term extension. Davenport’s deal expires after the 2022 season.
They’re cap-compliant, but their effective cap for 2023 is already $10M over the projected cap – the next closest team is the Cowboys, who are $10M under the projected cap. Adding Watson would push that up to $42M over, not counting any other moves they’d need to make to clear up the $25M for Watson’s cap hit this year, or any rookie contracts this or next year.
Either the Saints are going to blow up spectacularly in a couple years, or they’re going to create a revolution for how teams should manage their cap. Frankly, my money’s on the latter. They’ve been doing this for several years and every year people have said it can’t last forever. Each year gets closer to forever, though.