Tag: cap space

Saints’ offseason assets ranked among the NFL’s worst war chests

PFF has the Saints in the worst position to be in: a bad team without many offseason assets. They need more draft picks and more salary cap space to compete:

Pro Football Focus has New Orleans Saints in the worst position to be in as we get closer to the talent acquisition portion of the offseason. The Saints are a bad team without a lot of assets to change this reality. That means they’re short on draft picks and salary cap resources.

PFF ranked New Orleans as having the third-worst assets this offseason. Most teams at the bottom of the asset rankings are playoff teams. The Seahawks, who rank at the bottom, were a tiebreaker away from winning the NFC West. Then you have the Saints and Atlanta Falcons at 30 and 31st.

These rankings were determined by three categories: effective cap space, restructure potential and draft capital. The problem for the Saints is they’re the only team without any effective cap space after pushing so much money from past deals into this fiscal year.

New Orleans does have a good amount of restructure potential, as always, but most of the restructuring will be to get under the salary cap. It doesn’t mean they won’t sign anyone in free agency. New Orleans signed Chase Young last year after starting in a similar situation. However, the restructuring won’t give the Saints much to play with this offseason.

Building the roster will come through the draft for New Orleans in 2025. PFF’s rankings is a great depiction of that. Having one of the lowest sets of assets shouldn’t be too startling for New Orleans. This was expected to be a job that required a multi-year renovation.

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New Orleans Saints ranked bottom-3 in 2025 offseason assets

A complicated salary cap situation makes the New Orleans Saints a less-than-appealing destination. PFF ranked their offseason assets third-worst in pro football:

The New Orleans Saints are coming off of their worst season in a long time and don’t have much going for them this offseason in looking to improve.

Pro Football Focus’ Tomo Riske recently put together a graph showing each team’s full assets entering this offseason. That is combining their draft capital, salary cap space and contract restructure potential.

When adding all of those things together, the Saints rank No. 30 out of 32 teams. The only two ranked below them would be the division-rival Atlanta Falcons and awkwardly-placed Seattle Seahawks, who don’t have much to build around or build with.

Luckily for New Orleans, they do rank among the teams with the most draft capital in the league. When adding together the PFF value for their picks, they rank at No. 7 out of 32. Not bad.

Their negative cap space is what is holding them back, obviously, as they rank dead-last. While they can potentially restructure some contracts to open up more cap, that is the practice that has them in such a mess right now.

The best bet may be just riding it out, taking their lumps and coming back refreshed in 2026. We’ll see if Mickey Loomis and Co. agree.

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Broncos projected to have 11th-most salary cap space in 2025

The Broncos are projected to have the 11th-most salary cap space in the NFL this offseason.

The Denver Broncos were hamstrung by a $53 million “dead money” salary cap hit in 2024 after releasing veteran quarterback Russell Wilson. His cap hit will drop to $32 million in 2025 before Wilson is completely off the team’s books in 2026.

With a much lower hit from Wilson’s contract in 2025, the Broncos might be freed up to make some splashes during NFL free agency. Denver is currently projected to have $48,035,255 in salary cap space this spring, according to an estimate from OverTheCap.com.

That represents the 11th-most cap space in the NFL. Elsewhere in the division, the the Las Vegas Raiders ($92.5 million) rank second and the Los Angeles Chargers ($73 million) rank fourth. The Kansas City Chiefs ($11.5 million) rank 24th in the NFL.

The Broncos have already given big extensions to key in-house players including guard Quinn Meinerz, cornerback Pat Surtain, outside linebacker Jonathon Cooper and left tackle Garett Bolles. Denver now has 19 players scheduled to become free agents in March.

With a starting quarterback on a rookie contract for at least two seasons, the Broncos are in position to spend big going into 2025.

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Saints’ projected salary cap space after Ryan Ramczyk news

Ryan Ramczyk agreed to cut his 2025 salary this week, which sets him up for retirement. But how does it set up the Saints and the salary cap?

Ryan Ramczyk agreed to cut his 2025 salary this week, which sets him up for retirement. But how does it set up the New Orleans Saints and the salary cap? Let’s break it down.

To start, Ramczyk agreed to waive his $18 million base salary for the 2025 season in exchange for the veteran’s minimum at $1,255,000. Because he’s being forced into a medical retirement, he isn’t getting that money either way, but doing it like this gives the Saints immediate savings of about $16.7 million.

That left Ramczyk with a $12.3 million cap hit, and it puts the Saints at roughly $326 million in cap commitments for 2025. The NFL hasn’t yet announced where the cap will be this offseason but most experts agree it will fall at about $270 million. That means the Saints are probably in the hole by $56 million, or somewhere close to it.

This was just the first of several expected moves they’ll make this offseason. Restructures are coming for young, productive players — guys like Erik McCoy (saving up to $6.7 million), Cesar Ruiz ($5.2 million), and Carl Granderson ($5.2 million). Tougher decisions are ahead for older veterans like Cameron Jordan, Taysom Hill, Demario Davis and Tyrann Mathieu, all of whom have salary cap hits between $20 million and $10 million.

And the elephant in the room is Derek Carr. He has the biggest cap hit on the team at $51.4 million, and he’s made it clear he won’t accept a pay cut. The Saints could restructure his deal and save $30 million but that effectively locks him in as their starting quarterback for 2025 and 2026. Don’t bet on him waiving his no-trade clause to join a new team, either. It’ll cost as much to cut him as to keep him, at least until June 2, but that would mean finding a way to get under the cap and work through free agency and the NFL draft with a $51.4 million albatross around the neck. That just isn’t realistic.

The decisions Mickey Loomis has made have put the Saints in a bind. Overpaying Carr like this and restructuring aging players so many times has taken a toll, and now the Saints have to pay it.

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Early extension saved Saints a ton of money against the 2025 salary cap

An early extension with Alvin Kamara saved the Saints a ton of money against the 2025 salary cap. Next year’s cap gymnastics just got easier:

Now that’s some crafty accounting, but we’ve come to expect it from the New Orleans Saints. Alvin Kamara reached an agreement on a two-year extension with the Saints this week, and NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports that the move is saving the team some money when it comes to the 2025 salary cap. Kamara’s early extension opened up about $18 million in savings on next year’s spending limit.

So how did the Saints manage to pay Kamara more money while spending less against the cap? We’ll know more when further details are shared about his deal’s structure, but NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill shares that it includes a $15.5 million signing bonus and $22.23 million in guarantees.

Kamara was initially on the books for 2025 at a staggering cap hit north of $29 million, with $25 million of it non-guaranteed, which made him a possible salary cap casualty. Instead, the Saints guaranteed a big portion of it but spread it out as a signing bonus (likely with their signature automatically-voiding “ghost years” tacked on).

The end result? Kamara’s 2025 cap hit should now fall at around $11 million, which is very manageable. And the Saints should now have somewhere close to $324 million in cap liabilities. Depending on where you look the 2025 salary cap is projected to rise to as high as $273 million, though more conservative models put it at just $260 million. The Saints still need to clear  at least $64 million before they can turn to signing new players, but that’s a problem for another day.

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Seahawks create $9.5m in cap space by restructuring DK Metcalf’s contract

Seahawks create $9.5m in cap space by restructuring DK Metcalf’s deal

The Seattle Seahawks enjoy having one of the best front offices in football, and are always remaining active in improving the team’s situation. On Tuesday morning, the 12th Man awoke to news of another brilliant move by the organization.

Seattle has created roughly $9.5 million more in cap space by restructing wdie receiver DK Metcalf’s contract. The news was first reported by ESPN’s Field Yates.

https://twitter.com/FieldYates/status/1833487256381751712

In 2022, DK Metcalf signed a three-year deal worth $72 million. According to Spotrac, the restructured contract converts $11.875 million of salary into a signing bonus, while adding three extra voided years to the contract. For those unfamiliar with void years, they are added years without salary commitment but allows the team to spread money out over those years to help alleviate cap stress.

The move gives Seattle extra dry powder to fire in case they decide they need to make a big splash at the trade deadline, or sign a free agent off the streets. The Seahawks’ offensive line was a disaster in Week 1, it would not be surprising if the team made another move to bolster their protection up front. Perhaps even finding a way to create some extensions for players on the team before the season ends.

As for Metcalf, his current deal is set to expire at the conclusion of the 2025 season.

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Have the San Antonio Spurs been a cheap ball club when it comes to their recent payroll?

The details of what one means when we say cheap matter quite a bit with San Antonio.

Have the San Antonio Spurs been a cheap ball club when it comes to their recent payroll? The details of what one means when we say cheap matter quite a bit with San Antonio. As a team that has been rebuilding for a few seasons now, there has been little reason to invest in expensive players who do not mesh with the timeline of an organization in the midst of a reset.

So if we mean “cheap” as in “doesn’t cost a lot,” that’s a fair assessment. But if we mean the sort of franchise that habitually under-invests in their roster when they could be a contending team, history before the rebuild suggests that isn’t entirely fair of a frame for the Spurs.

And Bleacher Report cap expert Eric Pincus agrees, as he wrote in a full-league analysis on the state of spending in the NBA recently. “The rebuild hasn’t been pretty, but it yielded Victor Wembanyama,” he notes. “It may take some time for San Antonio to flesh out an expensive roster around him capable of winning at the highest level.”

“Maybe (San Antonio is) the best argument for context on the list, as the Spurs haven’t had a reason to spend lavishly in recent years,” Pincus adds.

“San Antonio paid tax twice during the 2011 CBA, but that’s outside of the current scope (spoiler: many current non-payers were also non-payers for those six additional years).”

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Trey Lance will cost 49ers more than Brock Purdy in 2024

Lol Trey Lance is going to cost the #49ers about the same against the cap this year as their entire QB room combined.

Everything about the Trey Lance era in San Francisco is strange. From the discourse and reporting around which quarterback the team was targeting in the 2021 draft, to his tenure with the team, to his eventual trade just ahead of the 2023 season – Lance’s third with the team. All the while Lance had to battle a veteran quarterback (Jimmy Garoppolo) who was on his way out the door for both of Lance’s first two seasons, only for Lance to have his spot taken by the final pick in the 2022 draft. It turns out we’re not quite done with the Lance oddities just yet.

Because of the nature of rookie contracts, when the 49ers traded Lance to the Cowboys for a fourth-round pick during the 2023 preseason, they had to eat some of the money left on his deal.

The 49ers will carry a $5,540,956 dead cap hit from Lance, which means the 2021 No. 3 overall pick and current backup QB for the Dallas Cowboys, will cost San Francisco more against the cap than their starting quarterback Brock Purdy.

Purdy in the third year of his four-year rookie contract will count for $1,004,253 against the cap. That makes Lance $4,536,703 more expensive for San Francisco than their starting quarterback for this season.

If we want to go a step further, Lance’s $5,540,956 cap hit for the 49ers will cost the team about as much as their entire QB room. Purdy, Brandon Allen, Joshua Dobbs and Tanner Mordecai are slated to cost $5,597,586 against the cap – just $56,630 more than Lance.

Ultimately that $4.5ish million is a drop in the bucket that hasn’t had any real impact on the 49ers’ offseason. And once Purdy is getting paid at or near the top of the market by the time he signs an extension, presumably next offseason, the Lance deal will be entirely off the books for San Francisco.

Alas, the Lance era was odd and this is one last small reminder of his tenure before the page turns for good.

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Christian McCaffrey extension creates $7.4 million in cap space for 49ers

Christian McCaffrey’s extension created more cap space for the 49ers, who now have the 7th most cap space in the NFL for 2024.

The 49ers and running back Christian McCaffrey agreed to a two-year contract extension that, while making the RB a touch more expensive, actually created cap space for the 2024 season.

According to Spotrac, the McCaffrey deal actually freed up $7.4 million in cap space for San Francisco and put them a touch more than $32 million under the cap this year.

There are a handful of ways the team can use some of that room this year with either signings or trades, but the more likely practical use comes in the rollover it provides next year since San Francisco will now be more than $41 million over the projected $260 million cap number on Over the Cap.

This type of cap gymnastics is why the club can actually generate more space when if they extend wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. He’s rocking a $14.1 million cap hit this year. That can be decreased significantly by extending him the same way the 49ers chopped $7.4 million off of McCaffrey’s own $14.1 million cap hit this year.

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How much salary cap space do the Commanders have post-June 1?

Despite being busy in free agency, the Commanders remain in excellent shape with the salary cap.

The Washington Commanders led the NFL in salary cap space heading into free agency in March. Washington, with plenty of holes to fill, was busy, signing over 20 external free agents and retaining some of its own.

Remarkably, the Commanders exited March’s busy free-agency period with over $40 million remaining in cap space.

Now we’ve entered the next phase of the offseason: Post-June 1 cuts, which many teams use to save money on the salary cap over two years. If teams cut players before June 1 and do not use the post-June 1 designation, all the salary cap hit counts on the current year.

Several teams used the post-June 1 designation this year. Washington, which released longtime veterans Charles Leno Jr. and Logan Thomas, did not. The Commanders have used the designation in the past to cut bad contracts, such as Landon Collins most recently.

We now have an updated look at what each team has remaining in cap space, according to Over the Cap. Washington is in excellent shape, with $43.4 million remaining in cap space for 2024 — second only to the New England Patriots ($46.4 million).

If a team cuts a good player for salary cap reasons, the Commanders would be in a prime position to add that player. However, it doesn’t appear that there are any significant cuts on the horizon. Washington could use some of that space to sign players to contract extensions, such as guard Sam Cosmi, or allow it to roll over into 2025.

Regardless of their decision, the Commanders have an extremely healthy salary cap situation for the foreseeable future.