We’ve heard the same story for almost five years now: the New Orleans Saints are locked in the deepest circles of NFL “salary cap hell.” General manager Mickey Loomis cleverly manipulated contracts to account for the rising salary cap to sign players to groundbreaking deals. This ran against the conventional wisdom of putting guaranteed cash in the earlier years rather than later.
Loomis compounded this with annual restructures to “kick the can down the road”, increasing those salary cap charges as time wore on. So as long as players were performing at a high level and the team was winning games, it was fine and following his plan.