So this is interesting. The Athletic’s Katherine Terrell first reported details of several restructured contracts for New Orleans Saints players in the team’s push to get under the 2022 salary cap by a considerable margin, with some of the biggest details involving veteran defensive backs Malcolm Jenkins and Bradley Roby.
For Jenkins, Terrell reports, the changes are considerable. Jenkins took a pay cut to reduce his base salary to the league minimum in both 2022 ($1.12 million) and 2023 ($1.165 million), the final two years of his contract. Unlike most restructures, he did not receive a signing bonus and no void years were added. This is the same maneuver the Saints took with Drew Brees prior to his retirement to help ease the salary cap hit once he was ready to step away from the game.
Jenkins, 34, could also be considering retirement. He’s won two Super Bowls in two different NFL cities and has wide-ranging business interests outside of football. There’s another shoe waiting to drop unless he’s planning to play out his deal while earning the veteran’s minimum. Whether that means retirement or an extension (which the Saints would have done in the first place) is unclear. If he does decide it’s time to retire from football, the Saints could designate him a post-June 1 cut (again, as they did with Brees) and carry minimal dead money charges of $3.95 million in 2022 and 2023.
Of course then the Saints would have to replace Jenkins, who led the team in defensive snaps played last season (1,041), but they’re also working in a new starting free safety in Marcus Williams (whose 1,036 snaps played ranked third-most in 2021). They could promote slot corner C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the starting strong safety job, partnering him with free agent pickup Marcus Maye, assuming he isn’t part of their proposed trade package for Deshaun Watson. They could also pursue another free agent like Tyrann Mathieu, who has handled a similar range of responsibilities to Jenkins as a positionless defender before. Re-signing backup safety P.J. Williams or drafting a replacement are other options. Whatever the case, losing Jenkins would introduce even more changes for a Saints defense that was billed as the team’s strength just a few months ago.
But let’s talk about Roby. Terrell also reported that Roby took a pay cut (like Jenkins, to the veteran’s minimum at $1.12 million) and added two real years to his contract in an extension. This means he’ll be a free agent in 2025, when he’s 33 years old. He’s scheduled to play on a $3 million salary in both 2023 and 2024, with $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses available each season.
He was slated to make $9.5 million from the Saints in 2022, which made him a cut candidate given his low snaps count behind Marshon Lattimore and Paulson Adebo. Now, he gets to stay in New Orleans on a more appropriate pay grade and can earn up to $8.12 million over the next three years if he’s active each week. Unlike Jenkins, though, there are two void years added to Roby’s contract for salary cap purposes. If nothing changes between now and this deal’s expiration, he’ll leave a little over $1.12 million behind in dead money in 2025.
The end result to all of these salary cap navigations? Instead of counting for a combined $21.8 million against the cap in 2021, Jenkins and Roby are now on the books for just $6.83 million. That went a long way towards opening up salary cap space for the Saints to put towards trading for Watson or any other moves they’re setting up this offseason. Remember, we’re only seeing part of the plan right now. Until some more action is taken, all we can do is look at the facts and the numbers and wait.
