NFL Salary Cap Set for 2024, Saints Have Less to Trim Now
The NFL announced the official salary cap number for 2024 on Friday. It comes in even higher than projected and will be $255.4 million for each team, which obviously is great news for the Saints.
Per the NFL release, this includes an additional $74 million per club payment for player benefits. Total player costs for 2024 is $329.4 million per club, more than $10.5 billion league-wide. The $30 million boost year over year is a result of full repayment of all amounts advanced by the clubs and deferred by the players during the Covid pandemic as well as an extraordinary increase in media revenue for the 2024 season.
So, where does that put the Saints? Given the current cap liabilities following the recent Derek Carr and Erik McCoy restructures, New Orleans is roughly at $298 million in liabilities, so that would mean they would have to trim around $40-43 million more just to be cap compliant.
When we looked at how to fix the Saints just over a month ago, the amount of player restructures available to utilize could create a lot of needed space. Here's some of the players the team could look at over the next several weeks to get where they need to go.
- Cam Jordan ($9.4 million)
- Demario Davis ($8 million)
- Carl Granderson ($7.2 million)
- Cesar Ruiz ($6.6 million)
- Taysom Hill ($6.6 million)
- Alvin Kamara ($8 million)
The new league year starts on March 13, and will undoubtedly be an exciting time around the NFL. This overage the Saints have to deal with is essentially child's play for Mickey Loomis and Khai Harley.
