Tag: spending

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures

The Saints broke this chart on the NFL’s trendy contract restructures, sitting so far out in front of the other teams it might muddy the data:

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Now there’s something you don’t see every day. Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald shared a chart displaying the three-year trend of contract restructure utilization and wins per season, and the New Orleans Saints broke the model.

Take a look at it. You’ll see many teams clustered near the NFL average, though notoriously spendthrift operations like the Cincinnati Bengals and Washington Commanders have almost never restructured a contract in recent years — with other teams like the Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Rams, and Green Bay Packers way out in front, nearing 15% of their potential.

Well, almost in front. They’re all competing for second place behind the Saints. No team has restructured more contracts with as much frequency over the last three years than New Orleans (35%). As Fitzgerald observed, including the Saints at all might muddy the data and make it tough to tell what’s going on here.

Remember, restructures are nothing new. Teams have always converted salaries into signing bonuses so they’re paid out on a different schedule to more easily fit everyone under the salary cap. What the Saints have done differently is taking what was a little-known accounting quirk and weaponized it, matching the pace of their spending with the annual rise of the salary cap so they won’t have to pay a hefty bill.

Things kind of went sideways for them during the COVID-19 pandemic, which introduced unique pressures to the NFL’s cap calculations. Instead of rising as expected the cap dipped, forcing the Saints to cut contracts they’d planned on keeping and restructured others with players they didn’t anticipate. For the 2020 and 2021 seasons at least, the Saints did everything they could just to get by.

So it’s a relief to see things returning to normalcy. The Saints’ cap situation is improving, slowly but surely, and they’re ranking among the league’s highest spenders now that they’ve paid the price for that creative accounting when the cap was more restrictive. They’re still restructuring more contracts than most teams, sure, and that’s going to be the case again in 2024. But things are in a much better space for 2023 than we saw in years past, and that should be our takeaway.

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After two quiet years, Saints rank among league’s leading spenders in 2023

After two quiet years, the New Orleans Saints rank among the league’s leading spenders in 2023, via @crissy_froyd:

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The 2023 season has the potential to be a big one for a New Orleans Saints team that finished out last season with a disappointing overall record of 7-10 in the midst of a lowly NFC South conference that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers led at 8-9.

It’s clear the team is looking for a complete overhaul in what appears to a Super Bowl-or-bust campaign as the team ranks the eighth-highest in active spending in 2023 with the additions of free agents Derek Carr, Jamaal Williams, Khalen Saunders and Nathan Shepherd, among others, per 247 Sports’ Jack Duffin.

This is a large shift after the Saints had the eighth-lowest active spending rate in the league during 2021 and continued that trend into 2022 with the third-lowest active spending rate in the NFL.

While there is plenty of risk involved with going all-in, the Saints have done, at least on paper to this point, a good job of addressing some of their biggest needs — including the quarterback position. Compared to their other options, Carr is a clear upgrade.

Having failed to meet the expectation in Tampa Bay and now in New Orleans, it seems like a long shot for Jameis Winston to ever be anything more than a viable high-end backup quarterback at best. While rookie quarterback Jake Haener has potential to develop into something incredibly special, placing him behind a veteran like Carr gives him a better chance of hitting that ceiling.

So, the move to sign Carr could be worth the money in more than one way, regardless of how Carr himself pans out. It will be interesting to watch just how effective the Saints’ strategy is when the action gets underway this fall.

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Saints among NFL’s biggest spenders in signing 2022 undrafted free agents

The Saints were among the NFL’s biggest spenders in signing undrafted free agents last year, but will that trend continue after the 2023 draft?

This is interesting. NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero shared a report from the NFL Players Association breaking down each team’s spending on undrafted free agents from the 2022 rookie class — and few teams spent as heavily to recruit undrafted talent as the New Orleans Saints.

In total, the Saints guaranteed a whopping $1,242,000 to the rookies they signed after the 2022 draft. That’s double the average spending by team ($600,551), ranking third-most behind the Philadelphia Eagles ($1,882,000) and Dallas Cowboys ($1,842,500). Teams are limited by how much they can guarantee to undrafted players, and the Saints came close to maxing out their rookie pool.

So where did that money go? The Saints guaranteed $222,000 to former Weber State wide receiver Rashid Shaheed, one of the highest totals for an undrafted player around the league (despite him recovering from a torn ACL at the time). They signed 19 undrafted rookies to an average guaranteed signing bonus of $9,294, so Shaheed was someone they valued very highly. If he had been healthy they may have drafted him in the sixth round instead of Air Force defensive tackle Jordan Jackson, who spent his rookie year on the practice squad before jumping ship for the Denver Broncos; but that worked out better for Shaheed because only $176,688 of Jackson’s contract was guaranteed, because of his draft slot. Shaheed signing an undrafted rookie deal actually allowed him to get more money in guarantees.

But only two of those undrafted players made the roster, in Shaheed and backup offensive lineman Lewis Kidd. Eight others earned spots on the initial practice squad. Only the Indianapolis Colts (4 on the roster, 7 on the practice squad) and Jacksonville Jaguars (3 on the roster, 9 on the practice squad) had more first-year players make the team.

On one hand, that’s impressive, but on the other hand it goes to show how serious the depth issues have gotten in New Orleans that so many undrafted players were in the mix. The COVID-19 pandemic-fueled salary cap crunch hit them harder than most teams.

Still, the Saints have a history of finding value among the players who aren’t fortunate enough to hear their name called on draft day. They aren’t afraid to spend big to bring in players who they believe in. We’ll see who joins the list in 2023.

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Which CFB programs spent the most on recruitment in 2022?

These 10 college football programs spent the most money on recruiting in 2022.

Recruiting isn’t a cheap expense when you consider all of the things that go into trying to land a commitment. You have to get your coaching staff to the recruit’s games and meet his coaches and family as well as eventually host the family on your campus. You must provide them with housing, meals, transportation, and any other kind of accommodation that will help put you in the good graces of a recruit.

The back-to-back national champions, Georgia Bulldogs, spent nearly 25% more than the second-place Clemson Tigers with $4.5 million in recruiting in 2022.

The Alabama Crimson Tide came in seventh on the list having spent $2.3 million on recruiting in 2022. What is impressive though is that they finished with the second-best recruiting class in 2022, higher than both Clemson and Georgia. The Tide trailed only Texas A&M, but Alabama still had the higher average of recruits.

As for the SEC, they are strongly represented on this list making up seven of the ten teams on the list if you include Texas and Oklahoma.

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Where do the Saints rank in salary cap spending at each position?

Where do the New Orleans Saints rank in salary cap spending at each position?

There isn’t a team that manages the salary cap more creatively than the New Orleans Saints, who use clever contract structuring and payout loopholes to maximize their resources. But where do they rank in positional spending around the league?

Over The Cap has a positional spending table which plots out the Saints’ salary cap commitments at each group. For a team stocked with many aging veterans and recent free agent acquisitions, they rank just inside the top half of the league at many positions.

Here’s a look at how the Saints’ spending stacks up on both offense and defense:

Derek Carr impressed by New Orleans Saints’ crafty salary cap accounting

Derek Carr impressed by the Saints’ crafty salary cap accounting, says of cap guru Khai Harley: ‘That man’s wheeling and dealing’ in free agency

There’s been a bit of an adjustment period for Derek Carr after he signed with the New Orleans Saints. Not just in moving his family from the communities they’ve lived grown up in, over in Southern California and Nevada to New Orleans, but in seeing how differently one NFL organization can be run compared to another. After spending most of a decade with the cash-strapped Raiders, he’s been blown away by how big of spenders the Saints have been in free agency.

Carr made a guest appearance on his nephew Austin’s Harvester Sports Podcast, where he noted how impressed he was by the team’s crafty salary cap accounting. Football administration vice president Khai Harley continued to prove his worth in a surprisingly-busy free agency experience for New Orleans. While catching up on the latest news, Carr was thrilled to see the league’s touchdown runs leader Jamaal Williams arrive to share the backfield with him and Alvin Kamara.

“You see the guy who had all the touchdowns, and first of all, where’d we get all the money? Where’d we get this money?” Carr laughed. “My man Khai in New Orleans, that man’s wheeling and dealing. It’s funny. We signed him and I’m like, dude, this is awesome.”

It’s a big difference from what Carr experienced on the Raiders, whose owner Mark Davis is notoriously cash-poor; his team’s shoddy financials was at least a partial factor in the decision to trade superstar pass rusher Khalil Mack back in 2018 rather than sign him to a lucrative extension. Despite also hailing from a small market, the Saints always seek to max out their resources and field the most competitive team possible.

Carr pointed to some of the other names the Saints brought in during free agency — a pair of new starting defensive tackles, and quality depth in the secondary, plus his former teammate Bryan Edwards at wide receiver. One free agent pickup Carr singled out was defensive back Lonnie Johnson Jr., who he’s eager to compete against in practice over the summer.

“This guy’s a baller, I’ve always loved him,” Carr gushed, “He’s so talented. And then we sign him, and I’m like, I was right! They think so too.”

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Ravens have chunk of total cap space ahead of 2023 free agency

The Ravens could be key players in the 2023 offseason with a chunk of unallocated salary cap space

The Baltimore Ravens have plenty of needs to fill in the 2023 offseason and are positioned to be key players when free agency opens in March. They will need to figure out how to best pour resources into certain areas of their team through free agency, trades and the draft, and will need to keep up with the rest of the NFL by improving their roster.

Free agency for the NFL opens in a few weeks as teams prepare to spend money on players to help their roster. Baltimore currently holds the eighth most available cap space in the NFL at just under $26 million dollars in unallocated funds ahead of the free agency period.

Much of this room could be taken up with quarterback Lamar Jackson’s extension or franchise tag, though the team could also free up more room by restructuring or cutting ties with other players under contract. They will look to add talent on both sides of the ball as they re-tool their roster to compete for a Super Bowl title in 2023.

Certainly, a resolution of Jackson’s situation will be the most critical aspect of their offseason roadmap, though once the numbers to retain him are hammered out, they should still have the cap room to add talent at other positions. Who they might target in free agency is, to this point, unknown, though they will need to know how much money they’ll be working with before they can make any big splashes as top players around the NFL find new homes for the 2023 season.

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