Canal Street Chronicles
Is this a backhanded compliment?
Bill Barnwell with ESPN has released his NFL Offseason NFC Teams Superlatives and he listed the New Orleans Saints as the “Most likely to be dragged into the future.”
This feels hurtful but also somewhat true. Every year, we hear that the Saints are going to be in cap hell forever... that they’ve got negative cap space... they’re $547 million over the cap, they can’t do anything. Then, every year like clockwork, Mickey Loomis waves his magic wand over some contracts, everybody gets paid, all of a sudden, Saints have room under the cap. Now, I won’t pretend know how all salary cap magic goes. My knowledge extends to knowing that they usually push the money to future years and I’ve always been curious why other GMs don’t do this, because if you always push the money to the future, you never have to worry about it, right?
However, as Barnwell points out, thanks to Derek Carr and Ryan Ramczyk both retiring after June 1 and some other contracts coming off the books after the 2025 season, there is a future where the cap issues are over, but does that mean we are in cap hell now? He predicts that the Saints will have plenty of room in 2027 and I believe him because again, I don’t know any better and he’s definitely smarter than me at this. What will they do with all this cap space? I have no clue but I’m sure that myself or one of the other great writers on this site will eventually have to do a look ahead at what free agents will be shaking loose going into 2027. However, everything hinges on how the team looks this year as to what holes will need to be filled in 2026 and then again with this mysterious cap space in 2027.
I truly question whether the superlative for the Saints is a backhanded compliment but then I see that the Carolina Panthers are “Most likely to have definitely solved their problem this time, for sure” and I think, well it could be worse.
