It was always going to come to this. Andrus Peat’s contract with the New Orleans Saints is their last in-house salary cap hurdle, which is kind of poetic given how frustrating that deal has been over the years. Few Saints starters have missed as many games with injuries as Peat while turning in up-and-down game tape and ranking among the team’s top earners. Of course this is their final challenge to deal with.
Right now, Peat has the highest salary cap hit on the team for the 2023 season at $18,371,000. The Saints have two options in front of them: restructuring Peat’s hefty $11.8 million base salary into a new signing bonus and committing to him for another year or two, or releasing him (a trade is possible, but unlikely, given his injury history and the contract value). A restructure would save more than $7.9 million for 2023, so that’s the likeliest outcome.
