It isn’t really accurate to say we’re updating the New Orleans Saints’ salary cap space situation — the team doesn’t have any space under the cap right now because they’re still over the cap by about $10.7 million. But a couple of recent moves have changed the situation, so let’s take stock of where things currently stand.
Per Over The Cap’s experts, the Saints are currently in the red by an estimated $10,602,3364. Now that only reflects the information and roster moves which have been made publicly available. It’s very possible that the Saints have already checked all their boxes and reached cap compliance without leaking anything to the media. It’s not like they’re frantically working to beat the deadline (next Wednesday at 3 p.m. CT).
And two recent moves changed that projection. The Saints signed starting safety Tyrann Mathieu to a new two-year contract valued at $13.5 million, with a salary cap hit of just $5,567,000 for 2024. That pushed them down to a nearly-level $10.5 million level over the spending limit.
But another shoe dropped when the Saints tendered Pro Bowl returns specialist Rashid Shaheed, an exclusive rights free agent. That costs $985,000 against the cap. Because only the top 51 cap hits count on the books at this time of the year, Shaheed pushed a lesser-valued contract of $795,000 (there’s six different players all carrying that number) beneath the threshold. So the true cost to the cap was only $190,000, meaning the Saints are in the red by $10,792,634.
At least at the time of writing. More moves are on the way. Obvious dominoes yet to fall include cap hits for right tackle Ryan Ramczyk ($27 million), running back Alvin Kamara ($18.7 million), linebacker Demario Davis ($18.1 million) and do-it-all weapon Taysom Hill ($15.7 million). There are other levers the Saints can pull if they really want to max out their cap resources, but those are the big ones to watch.
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