Oh, brother. Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay suggested a trade sending New Orleans Saints star running back Alvin Kamara to the Baltimore Ravens that’s, well, laughable. The Saints would be fools to accept this offer:
- Baltimore gets: Alvin Kamara
- New Orleans gets: 2024 seventh-round pick (No. 247 overall)
There’s an obvious problem here in the value being exchanged. Kamara may not be the same big-play threat he was earlier in his career, but the Saints are hoping he can turn things around with a new offensive coaching staff and system on top of another year working with Derek Carr, whose tendency to check down quickly after the snap led to a lot of targets going Kamara’s way. A seventh-round pick is ridiculous compensation for No. 41.
But let’s get to the other problem with Bleacher Report’s proposal. Saints fans are better acquainted with salary cap gymnastics than most, so see if you can spot the problem. Here’s what Kay had to say about this trade idea:
The 28-year-old back would be an an ideal buy-low candidate for the Ravens, who could try to capitalize on the Saints’ need to shed salary. The Saints project to be $82.8 million over next year’s cap, but they could save $11.8 million by trading Kamara after June 1.
While NFL teams are allowed to designate up to two releases as a post-June 1 cut each offseason for salary cap purposes, no rule exists for trades. The Saints would have to keep Kamara on their books with an $18.7 million cap hit through free agency in March and the 2024 NFL draft in April before trading Kamara in June to reap those cap benefits — meaning the Ravens would have already spent the seventh-round pick that Bleacher Report says Baltimore should trade to New Orleans, and the Saints would have had to get under the cap without touching Kamara’s contract.
If that’s a typo or some other oversight, then it means they see a 2025 seventh rounder as fair compensation for a five-time Pro Bowl running back, and that’s lubricious. The Saints are going to need to figure out something with Kamara’s contract this year. Whether that means another restructure, a reworking, a pay cut, or something else unknown, they can’t have him counting $18.7 million against the cap. But that doesn’t mean they should let another team take them to the cleaners and trade away a fan-favorite playmaker for so little in return.
