Every year, there's a ton of concern about the New Orleans Saints' cap space. During the mid-to-late 2010s, New Orleans was contending for a Super Bowl. In order to clear out finances for their free agents, the Saints decided to kick the financial can down the road continually. Now, New Orleans is dealing with the financial implications of their aggressive moves in years past.
As it turns out, though, their path towards salary cap compliance isn't as complicated as one might think. One of the ways that teams often fix their salary cap issues is by restructuring the contracts of their players. This often involves converting part of a player's salary cap hit into a signing bonus. The Saints did this with defensive end Chase Young's contract, as reported by Nick Underhill.
Before the restructuring, Young possessed the highest cap hit on the Saints with a whopping $20.5 million. Initial cap projections had the Saints above the salary cap red line by around $11.6 million. With the restructured contract, New Orleans saved around $10.9 million in cap space. That's nearly enough to get them into salary cap compliance. They will need another move or two to be completely in the clear, but those hypothetical moves also come with the potential of clearing up cap space for future free agents.
Other candidates for a contract restructuring are edge rusher Carl Granderson ($18 million cap hit in 2026) and center Erik McCoy ($17.7 million cap hit). Those moves should get the Saints well into the green and into free agent signing territory for the following seasons.
The Saints are coming off a tumultuous 2026 season. It's hard to find a silver lining when you finish the season with a 6-11 record and were not really in the running to contend for the playoffs. Still, the Saints did see some success when rookie quarterback Tyler Shough took over midway through the season. Young also had an excellent year for the Saints, finishing with 10 sacks on the year.
Being in the early stages of a rebuild, New Orleans is looking for development success stories right now, not immediate home run picks. The Saints have the eighth pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
