In recent years, the New Orleans Saints have become a really predictable team in the offseason. Every year, they enter the offseason significantly over the salary cap, before finding ways to create enough cap space to retain the team’s core. There are rarely any major moves made that will help New Orleans escape the cycle of mediocrity it’s been stuck in.
This offseason will likely be more of the same. That’s why even bold predictions for the Saints are still somewhat believable. That was evident in a recent ESPN piece by Aaron Schatz, where he made a bold offseason prediction for all 32 teams. For New Orleans, the prediction was that the team won’t restructure Derek Carr’s contract.
Saints predicted to leave Derek Carr’s contract alone
Typically, New Orleans uses contract restructures to help get under the salary cap. With Carr having the largest cap hit on the team, a restructure of his contract would certainly make sense this offseason. However, Schatz believes the team would rather take his contract as is, so the franchise could move on quicker.
"The Saints need to take their medicine as soon as possible, and one way to do that is to avoid restructuring Carr's contract. That's going to be very hard to do, because a Carr restructure would save the Saints $30 million on the cap. But it would also tie New Orleans to him for a couple of more seasons and push more money down the line, which makes it harder to split from Carr anytime soon. Yes, Carr had a 63.4 QBR in 2024, but hanging on to a 34-year-old quarterback widely seen as mediocre is emblematic of the Saints' problems. They need to resist a Carr restructure so they can finally move on from him after the 2025 season."Aaron Schatz (ESPN)
That's certainly a reasonable approach. The only path forward that may make more sense is finding a way to move on from Carr this offseason. Unless the team can find another team willing to trade for Carr and his contract, that the veteran QB is also willing to go to, New Orleans will pick up a massive dead cap hit. Of course, the amount of the dead cap varies based on when the release would take place, but fans certainly wouldn’t mind if the Saints turned the page on Carr this offseason.
That’s something New Orleans has to figure out this offseason, but everyone will agree that the team doesn’t need to make any kind of restructure that will tie the veteran quarterback to the franchise any longer than he already is.