After reworking Erik McCoy‘s contract earlier this week, the Saints continue to carve out cap space. According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Saints have restructured quarterback Derek Carr‘s contract, opening around $23MM in cap space. Meanwhile, ESPN’s Field Yates adds that the team also restructured defensive tackle Nathan Shepherd‘s deal, clearing another $3MM in space.
[RELATED: Saints Restructure C Erik McCoy’s Contract]
Carr inked a four-year, $150MM contract with the Saints last offseason. According to Jason Fitzgerald of OverTheCap.com, the Saints likely converted the maximum ($28.79MM) of Carr’s $30MM salary into a bonus, reducing the quarterback’s cap number from $35.7MM to $12.67MM in the process.
Of course, this instant relief will have an impact on the team’s future cap sheets. Per Greg Auman of FOX Sports, this recent restructure effectively assures that Carr will be sticking around New Orleans through at least the 2025 campaign. Next offseason, the Saints will be faced with paying Carr around $40MM, or they’ll be left with an untenable $50MM in dead cap by moving on. Fitzgerald adds that the recent cap machination boosts Carr’s future cap hits by around $5.76MM per season, and his $51.46MM cap number for the 2025 campaign now ranks fifth in the NFL.
Shepherd also joined New Orleans last offseason, inking a three-year, $15MM deal. He proceeded to have a career year, compiling 50 tackles and 3.5 sacks in 17 starts. While Pro Football Focus wasn’t fond of his performance in 2023, they did grade him as one of the better pass-rushing interior defenders in the NFL.
When accounting for the reworked deals for Carr, Shepherd, and McCoy, the Saints have opened up around $33MM in cap space this week…and they may not be done. Fowler reported yesterday that the team is expected to also rework the contract of offensive lineman Cesar Ruiz. Even with all their recent moves, the Saints still need to do a lot of work to become cap compliant. The team entered the offseason around $83MM over the cap.
Even though the cap has the largest raise ever, the Saints are still in the red? Time for a new GM.
Every year Loomis does this, and every year he somehow finds a way out. Not sure how this one’s going to go, though. Carr may be in New Orleans for a long time. It’s not, on its face, a bad thing; Carr is a decent quarterback, and can be pretty good when he plays at his best, but the Saints are going to have to make some great low cost picks-and probably get a new coach-if they want to make the most of Carr being there.
Sure. All teams are cap compliant. I think the last team that got doc’ed for not being was Denver after Elway won his last SB in the last 90’s.
But what are they achieving, 1-2 games above/below .500? If they make the playoffs, it’s one and done. The guy below me, Michael is right. Time for a fresh start in the Big Easy.
I didn’t disagree necessarily. But Loomis has been a wizard when it comes to the cap. Personally, I’d have jettisoned the coach and Thomas years ago, but I digress.
The Saints always cultivate talent, but they benefitting from having one of the greatest (and most underrated) quarterbacks of all time and one of the league’s best coaches and now have a bad to mediocre staff with a few good players. As you said, they’re not awful, but they don’t look great, either. They’re just kind of there. I’m still a bit hesitant to boot Loomis right now if I’m New Orleans. The team isn’t good, but they’re not bad, and I’ve seen how hard it is to find even a competent G.M. recently, let alone a good one. ButI’m definitely considering it.
Unless Kubiak completely rejuvenates the offense, you figure that an overhaul is necessary. That either means swinging for the fences in the draft to build a new long term roster, or tearing down the current roster and starting over. I think that they could get away with simply adding and cutting the excess from their current roster soon (like Thomas, for instance), but no matter what they do, it’ll take heavy draft investment for star players to rebuild that long term foundation that seems shaky right now. Full rebuild is the way, but they may not to rid themselves completely of what they have now to get the necessary pieces exchanged.
Everyone always looks great when they have a HoF QB! The question is would you trust Loomis to be your GM w/o a gold jacket passer? I wouldn’t. They’re like today’s Bills. A handful of very expensive vets and not much in the pipeline to fill the ranks. And both GM’s have to be ‘cap wizards’ to deal with their mismanagement of team building/drafting.
At what point do the Saints just take a year to eat all this dead money and reset? I respect a team for going all in every year, but this isn’t the team to do it with and they’re locking themselves into a mediocre core. I guess the division is still winnable, but they’re pretty much a perennial 7-9 win team and nothing else.
The problem is with the owner allowing the GM to keep going all in to preserve his chances of keeping his job.
I think part of it is that City loves the Saints so much that committing to being truly uncompetitive for a season or more would be hard to swallow, even if the cap needs a reset badly.
Here you go Paul…Peter says hi.