Look around online and you’ll see so, so much hand-wringing about how the New Orleans Saints are going to keep their team together. There are so many terrible takes on social media suggesting the Saints are going to have to cut half their team just to get under the salary cap. And it’s all malarkey. Maybe even baloney. It’s nonsense.
The Saints structure the vast majority of their contracts with players so that they can restructure salaries and bonuses at will, converting those payouts into signing bonuses which can be paid off in subsequent seasons. Sure, they could cut a bunch of starters to reach cap compliance — but it’s worth more to the Saints to restructure those contracts, saving cap space and keeping their core players. The financial benefits don’t justify cutting their best players, especially if the team won’t see those benefits until it’s too late to matter.
