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From @gmfb: The #Saints are making salary-cap preparations for the possible arrival of Jadeveon Clowney. pic.twitter.com/hB4xvowlat
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) September 4, 2020
The New Orleans Saints are pulling out all of the stops in their pursuit of free agent defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, up to and including a quick trip to Houston for a member of the coaching staff to meet with him. They’re locked in a tight race with the Tennessee Titans to win Clowney’s services, but a few other teams could be waiting for their chance to strike.
And the Saints like their chances. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported Friday that the Saints have approached veteran players already under contract about restructuring their deals, creating much-needed salary cap space so that Clowney could get onto the books. While that’s hardly a sign that this deal is definitely going to happen, it does show that the Saints are considering the ripple effects it could have on their roster.
So which contracts could they be looking at adjusting? We dug into a few tricks the Saints have used to work around the salary cap already, but let’s really get into the nuts and bolts on this.
The Saints frequently restructure deals by converting current-year salaries into signing bonuses, which are paid out immediately but spread out across future years for cap accounting purposes. That means eligible players would be those under contract beyond 2020 and who carry high base salaries this season.
A few quick examples:
- OL Nick Easton: $4.5 million base salary, signed through 2022
- DT Malcolm Brown: $4.1 million base salary, signed through 2021
- K Wil Lutz: $3.1 million base salary, signed through 2023
- P Thomas Morstead: $2.95 million base salary, signed through 2022
- RB Latavius Murray: $2.8 million base salary, signed through 2022
So why doesn’t every team always restructure each contract to make more room? One downside is that new signing bonuses must be cashed out immediately, so team owners aren’t always eager to write more checks every summer (credit to Saints owner Gayle Benson for having no problem opening her pocketbook). Another pitfall is that restructures increase how much dead money would be left on the books from contracts should the Saints have to cut a player later on down the road. That’s a very real concern given expectations of a $175 million salary cap hit next year (down from $198.2 million this season, due to lost revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic).
Of course, that’s the easy way to restructure a contract. The Saints have also pioneered extensions that restructure existing deals to create more salary cap space in the past, and that’s certainly an option now. It’s just much more complicated.
The difficulty here is that future cap hits are raised so much that there’s no way of getting out of those contracts, so the Saints usually stick to franchise cornerstones like Drew Brees, Cameron Jordan, Terron Armstead, and Michael Thomas when going that route. Those are trusted players who the team knows will play well and be around for the future.
And in this case, the Saints have already chopped and screwed those contracts so much before that they aren’t in a position to do so right now. None of those players carries a base salary higher than $2.25 million (Jordan), leaving little salary to restructure in the first place. So this time, they probably aren’t an option.
However, the Saints could look to some of their 2021 free agents as options for a sign-and-restructure. The second-biggest cap figure on the team behind Brees belongs to Demario Davis, whose $7.35 million base salary makes up most of his $9.9 million cap hit. If the Saints can work out a long-term deal with Davis and convert much of that base salary to a signing bonus, they could make the room needed for Clowney’s contract.
Other options in the same boat as Davis are Jared Cook ($5 million base salary, $9 million cap hit) and Sheldon Rankins ($7.69 million; his cap hit is entirely made up of his base salary, which was guaranteed when his fifth-year contract option was picked up). The Saints could extend either of those players and create more breathing room, but Rankins is in a prove-it year and Cook is on the older side for a tight end. There’s some risk involved with tying the team to those contracts at this stage.
These are all things that Saints salary cap guru Khai Hartley is acutely aware of, and the team is smart to get proactive and see which players would be open to restructures sooner rather than later. Even if things fall apart with Clowney, it’s good to know they’ll have some flexibility should the right opportunity come up with another player, whether in free agency now or at the NFL trade deadline in October.
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