The NFL shared some good news for the New Orleans Saints (and every other team) on Wednesday, with an updated range of estimates for the 2025 salary cap. Their latest projections put this year’s spending limit at between $278.5 and $281.5 million, which is another huge leap in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic caused the cap to plummet. It’s also a nice bump over everyone’s expectations, which previously had the cap settling at about $272 million. Every dollar counts.
But the Saints’ biggest offseason decisions won’t change just because of an extra $5 million. First-year head coach Kellen Moore must choose what to do with Derek Carr. Will he keep the expensive veteran quarterback under center, or choose to let him go and pursue a roster reset? Could he thread the needle and make everyone happy by keeping Carr for one more year and still turning over the depth chart?
The math is what it is — and you can find it for yourself at Over The Cap, where a team of experts maintains the best database available to the public. They currently have the Saints in the red by $47.1 million. So we can find two paths for the Saints reaching salary cap compliance. First, and easiest, is getting there with Derek Carr still on the team for 2025. Second, and more fraught, is getting there without Carr, who would be cut. Let’s explore their options.
Plan A: Restructure Carr’s contract
Let’s say that Kellen Moore looks at his options and decides to run with Carr as his quarterback in 2025. The Saints would have to restructure Carr’s contract, full stop. He’s already said he won’t agree to a pay cut and there’s no reason to think he’d agree to waive his no-trade clause and get moved elsewhere. If he’s on the roster he’ll be the QB. And restructuring him saves the Saints almost $31 million.
How would that restructure work? Carr’s base salary is $30 million, but a restructure would lower it to the minimum ($1,255,000) and combine the difference with his $10 million roster bonus. That $38,745,000 lump is then converted to a signing bonus and spread out over the next five years in $7,749,000 increments.
So by pulling this one lever we’re down from $47.1 million in negative cap space to just $16.1 million. Restructuring a couple of young and productive veterans — offensive linemen Erik McCoy (saving $6.7 million) and Cesar Ruiz ($6.4 million), plus defensive end Carl Granderson ($5.3 million) — gets us under the cap by $2.1 million.
A couple of cap casualties like defensive tackle Khalen Saunders, wide receiver Cedrick Wilson Jr., and running back Jamaal Williams will save a combined $6.5 million, opening doors for more-productive and younger players to step in. It also leaves us with $8.6 million in cap space. That’s enough to sign the rookie draft class in May but we’ll need more resources to make moves in free agency.
And that’s the big difference in these two approaches. The Saints could restructure Carr and make many of the same moves not out of survival, but with a goal of competing this season. If they cut Carr, they’re making those same roster decisions, plus more austere cuts and restructures, just to field a team in September.
If you’re curious, this plan (with no other moves) would leave the Saints with an estimated $54.6 million in salary cap space for 2026. It would raise Carr’s salary cap hit to $69.2 million next year, but the Saints could release him at that point and get back up to $50 million if they use the post-June 1 designation, or $9.5 million if it’s a standard release. The downside is releasing him with that designation next year, 2026, leaves behind $40.4 million as dead money in 2027. At the same time the salary cap could be well over $300 million by that point and you can justify taking that hit.
The bottom line: Restructuring Carr in 2025 does not mean he’ll return in 2026 so long as the salary cap keeps trending up.
Plan B: Release Carr from his contract
Here’s the alternative: releasing Carr with a post-June 1 designation that makes him a free agent and saves the Saints $30 million. The catch is they won’t get that $30 million until June 2, after free agency and after the draft, so it doesn’t help them get under the cap. Instead they could use it to sign draft picks, process in-season moves, and roll a lot over into 2026.
In the short term, releasing Carr like this does save the Saints about $1.3 million. That puts them over the cap by roughly $45.8 million. So where do they move next?
Many of the same restructures are still in the plans: younger guys like McCoy, Ruiz and Granderson. That leaves them in the red by $27.5 million. Restructuring defensive captains Demario Davis ($5.6 million) and Tyrann Mathieu ($4.5 million) isn’t ideal at their ages, but it’s got to get done. Now we’re over the cap by just $17.4 million.
It’s time to talk cap cuts. The Saints can release unproductive veterans like Saunders, Wilson, and Williams to net another $6.5 million. We’re still in the red by $10.9 million. Now we’re getting desperate. Is it worth cutting Foster Moreau after his Week 18 knee injury? Should we trade Chris Olave and embrace Rashid Shaheed as the WR1? Would Cameron Jordan rather take a pay cut than be released with our other post-June 1 designation? What about Taysom Hill?
A combination of those moves gets us in the clear, barely, but you can see how much more difficult it is than just restructuring Carr and looking to 2026 as the departure date. Older veterans like Davis and Mathieu are going to finish their careers here. Young pros with bad injury luck like Olave might be better off elsewhere. Fan favorites like Jordan and Hill could be playing ball for another team. The rookie draft class wouldn’t sign their contracts until June, which isn’t a real problem beyond optics, but it’s something else for fans and critics to complain about.
And the light at the end of the tunnel is a very early estimate of more than $101 million in cap space for 2026. Those kinds of funds would give Kellen Moore the ability to rebuild the team however he wanted to in free agency. He could sign a veteran quarterback or impact players at multiple positions. If the Saints go bottom up in 2025 and secure a lucrative draft pick in 2026, that combination of draft capital and salary cap resources might be enough to engineer a quick turnaround.