Now that we’re in the middle of the NFL regular season, I have some thoughts on a few business of football topics which have not only caught my attention, but my frustration. So allow me to vent here.
Saints are the Aints of cap management
The New Orleans Saints scored 91 points in their first two games and appeared to be, for a fleeting moment, an offensive juggernaut. They have scored only 116 points in their past seven games—all losses—and have now fired head coach Dennis Allen amid the sinking ship. Allen’s final act as coach was losing to the Carolina Panthers, who are also 2–7.
I have talked about the Saints and their credit card salary cap strategy much over the years. And as you might expect with my conservative cap strategy when I worked for the Green Bay Packers, I was not a fan of their way of doing business. As much as any team in the league, the Saints have continued to convert large salaries into signing bonuses to create short-term cap space, but add millions to cap proration in future years. Defenders of the Saints and their strategy have pointed to their ability to sign players and maintain competitiveness as they maxed out their credit card over the years. And, admittedly, the Saints have had some modest successes and seven playoff appearances since their Super Bowl in 2009, but one can hardly say their cap deferrals were to win whatever they have won since that time.
Now, as they say, the chickens have come home to roost. It was always thought that one day their cap deferrals would come back to bite them. That time is now.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer speaking to Flounder in : The Saints are a bad team, with an overpaid and declining quarterback, and no obvious replacement for the future.
They have shed one of their best players at the trade deadline, Marshon Lattimore, to incur another $25 million in dead cap next year. They not only lead the league in dead cap with almost $48 million in 2025, but they have the worst cap situation at close to $62 million over the projected $270 million salary cap. Derek Carr has a $51 million cap hit next year if he stays and a $50 million cap hit if he goes. And if the face of their defense, Cam Jordan, retires, his dead cap will be $24 million, an extraordinary number for a nonquarterback.
I told Saints fans this would happen, but I understand it is hard to see the future when focused on the present. But this is the credo about cap management I always tell people: It doesn’t take a salary cap genius to push out cap room into the future (anyone can do that), but it does take a salary cap genius to manage the cap without the need to do that.
