Saints trail NFL ‘dead money’ leaders even after Malcolm Jenkins’ retirement
There’s been a lot of worrying about the New Orleans Saints’ salary cap situation — mostly from outside New Orleans. Pro Football Focus ranked the Saints dead-last in evaluating the “salary cap health” outlook for every team across the NFL, and the Saints’ unorthodox team-building strategies still draw the ire of experts like ESPN’s Bill Barnwell. But things look a lot better for New Orleans once you take a closer look at how they’ve set themselves up.
As expected, the Saints took advantage of the NFL’s post-June 1 rule and waited to process Malcolm Jenkins’ retirement until it was most beneficial for them. Despite having hung up his cleats and cut the team a break by reducing his salary to the league minimum, Jenkins will remain on the books for a meager $3.95 million (left over from his signing bonus) this year and next, just like Drew Brees did when he stepped away from the game. That adds up to a combined $33.3 million dead money charge for the Saints from past contracts with players like Brees, Jenkins, and Terron Armstead, but let’s keep some perspective.
On its face, that $33.3 million in dead money (let’s be precise — the team at Over The Cap has the Saints with a cumulative charge of $33,336,318) is daunting. It’s a total that ranks sixth-highest in the NFL. Compare it to the rest of the league, though, and you’ll see that’s it’s closer to the $25.7 million NFL-average than the $52.7 million average that the top-five teams (the Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears, Houston Texans, Philadelphia Eagles, and Seattle Seahawks) are accounting for. The gap between sixth-ranked New Orleans and fifth-worst Seattle ($12.6 million) is almost as wide as that between Seattle and second-place Chicago ($10.1 million).
It’s a far cry from where the Saints were not too long ago; they carried a staggering $42.9 million in dead money into the 2021 regular season. Sure, that $33.3 million figure will go up as the team processes roster cuts in August and September. But look a little further down the road and you’ll see that New Orleans only has $3.95 million in dead money on the books for 2023 — that’s the remaining charge from Jenkins’ terminated contract.
In a perfect world, the Saints wouldn’t have any dead money to worry with at all (that’s where more than half the league is projected for 2023, at the moment), but the Saints are already starting out in a better position than they’ve seen before. Next year they won’t have any lingering dead money charges for Brees or Armstead weighing them down, though it’s important to extend David Onyemata before his contract expires next spring (which would leave behind more than $10.1 million in dead money).
As is always the case, the Saints are projected to be in the red by a greater extent than any other team next season; OTC suggests the 2023 salary cap could reach $225 million, and the Saints are already over that limit by $57.9 million. Whatever work can be done now to make the descent from that mountain easier is valuable.
But let’s not lose the track here. Let’s recap each of the Saints’ dead money cap hits for 2022 and why things are, well, the way they are for New Orleans:
Terron Armstead: $12,981,324
AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman, File
Armstead left in free agency for a well-deserved contract with the Miami Dolphins, who paid him handsomely to come try and help salvage Tua Tagovailoa’s NFL career. The Saints could have budgeted for Armstead if they really felt the need (and reports suggested they would have if Deshaun Watson had picked New Orleans as his trade destination), but it’s tough to pay top-of-market money to a left tackle who didn’t lead the team in snaps played there last year due to injuries — Armstead’s backup James Hurst (557 snaps) was in his spot more often than Armstead himself (467). Armstead’s age and injury history set the stage for his departure despite the team-leading dead money charge left behind from a series of past contract restructures.
Drew Brees: $11,500,000
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Brees isn’t sure what his next move will be after parting ways with NBC Sports earlier this spring, though the Saints don’t anticipate him trying an NFL comeback. In any case, the Saints are left with $11.5 million they can’t spend after processing his retirement last year. That’s the cost of doing business with a Hall of Fame quarterback under center for so long, which necessitated so many go-for-broke moves and restructures to open up more cap space. The good news is that this is the last of the money tied up in accounting for Brees, and the Saints can move on without that albatross around their neck in 2023.
Malcolm Jenkins: $3,950,000
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Jenkins’ retirement was officially processed on June 2, which brought the Saints some slight salary cap relief (putting them at north of $10.6 million in unspent cap space). Now 34-going-on-35 and with two Super Bowl rings, a variety of other business interests, plus a wife and several young children waiting at home, Jenkins went out on his own terms. And the Saints will have $3.95 million tied up in accounting for his signing bonus in both 2022 and 2023.
Jameis Winston: $3,000,000
AP Photo/Derick Hingle
Winston’s last contract voided before the Saints opted to re-sign him, which gave him the opportunity to test the market and allowed New Orleans to survey all of their options. And because of its structure (the Saints had to get creative to fit him under the salary cap in 2021) this vestigial $3 million cap hit is lingering around, even if Winston ultimately returned to New Orleans on a new deal with an additional $4 million cap hit. Dead money hits typically refer to accounting for players no longer on the team, but as is the case for Winston and one other player on this list, it’s best thought of as the remains of a past contract.
Tre'Quan Smith: $954,267
AP Photo/Derick Hingle
Smith and Winston are the only two players on the 2022 roster who also carry dead money cap hits from past contracts, but the situation is different here with Smith than it was for Winston. With COVID-19 absences mounting at midseason in 2021, Saints salary cap maven Khai Harley pulled out every trick he could think of just to make room for more players — including a restructure with Smith in the final year of his rookie contract, which at least allowed the Saints to sign some free agents off the street and field an NFL-compliant roster. And because Smith did test free agency after that contract expired (later re-signing with New Orleans), the small amount that New Orleans’ maneuver freed up at the time counts against them this year.
Latavius Murray: $850,000
AP Photo/Derick Hingle
Murray rounds out the list. The Saints cut him after training camp last summer after his backup Tony Jones Jr. showed more flashes throughout the preseason, which did save a little cap space at the time though this cap hit is still hanging around from the final year of his deal. Murray ended up signing with the Baltimore Ravens for 2021 and totaled 501 rushing yards (trailing Lamar Jackson’s 767 yards and the 576 yards posted by Devonta Freeman, his former teammate at Saints training camp in 2021) and 6 touchdown runs (more than any other Raven scored on the ground, ahead of Freeman’s 5 scoring runs) across 14 games.
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