You guys aren't looking at restructures, nor the rising salary cap.
(Saints fan so bear with me)
Cap is $140 million in 2014, will likely rise to the neighborhood of $150 million in 2015. Probably $160 in 2017.
As it stands the Saints are roughly 13 million in the hole for 2015, with a projected cap of $150 million. However, Brees' contract is obviously set up for a restructure extension that could cut his cap hit by 60 percent. Since the day he signed that deal, it's been known that was the case. For the sake of argument, let's say his salary is halved, which puts you back to even.
Of the remaining players on the roster, there are some very obvious cuts and restructures. Ben Grubbs is a $4 million player being paid like a $9 million player. He's a restructure candidate, as is Jahri Evans. Curtis Lofton is a guy who will likely be cut outright, good player but limited athletically. The Saints already have a better, cheaper established player in David Hawthorne who can move into his spot, and three promising young guys beside that (Reddick, Humber, Fortt). Brodrick Bunkley finds himself in a similar situation, again, good player but 2013 rookie John Jenkins played half the season in his place as a starter while Bunkley was injured.
By my estimates, by restructuring Brees, Grubbs and Evans (at a conservative 50% rate), then cutting Lofton and Bunkley, the Saints can take a little more than $26 million out of their 2015 cap. That's counting dead money losses, and not taking into account other minor moves, for example, Champ Bailey will probably not see year 2 of his deal and Morstead, a punter, makes 3.5 million.
That would account for another roughly $6 million. So you could see the Saints as much as $20 million under the cap when free agency starts in 2015, with the only key re-signs being Cam Jordan and possibly (possibly) Mark Ingram.
It's not dissimilar to the way the Patriots have worked their cap over the last few years. The benefit of being top-heavy on your salary structure is you don't have to make a ton of moves to create room. The catch is you have to draft well and find UDFA's and the Saints (and Patriots) have done outstanding jobs at that.
Ultimately the Saints will have to pay the piper, but they can realistically keep pushing numbers around and keeping the team a contender until Brees retires. At that point you do like the Colts did after Manning: blow it all up and start over. In all likelihood that will be a rough year or two, but Payton/Loomis built the team into a contender almost instantly after taking over from Haslett, then again made a near-total rebuild following the 2012 season. I think as long as Payton is around the Saints will be a contender long-term, maybe not a Super Bowl threat every season but good enough to hang around making playoff appearances and the occasional deep run for another decade or so. Just my two cents.
