Smart NFL teams are always looking to maximize their resources, and the New Orleans Saints might be the leading innovators for that movement. Between their use of the veteran’s minimum salary benefit and “ghost years” woven into contracts (spreading salary cap hits out into years in which the player won’t be signed to New Orleans), the Saints have done everything possible to, well, get into creative accounting.
It’s left them with one of the league’s strongest rosters and a hair above $8.2 million in salary cap space for the 2020 season; to be exact, we estimate them with $8,207,233 in funds.