Janoris Jenkins will be tough to replace. The New Orleans Saints terminated their contract with the veteran cornerback on Thursday, opening a hole in the secondary that they aren’t well-positioned to fill. And while the Saints did recoup some big salary cap savings in the release, they were able to elbow into even more.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints had one more lever to pull, creating a little more room to breathe. Jenkins’ contract included $1.2 million in a fully-guaranteed roster bonus that would have eaten away at the team’s salary cap savings in releasing him. Instead, the Saints converted that into a signing bonus, meaning it’s counted against the cap in $600,000 this year and again in 2022.
So while it is just $600,000 in savings, that’s something the Saints can stretch a long way. Because only the top 51 contracts are counted for salary cap purposes, more-valuable deals push less-valuable ones off the cap sheet. That helps fit new contracts on the books.
For example, when the Saints signed running back Ty Montgomery to a veteran’s minimum salary, his cap hit was valued at just $850,000. But his addition pushed the $660,000 cap hit for practice squad tight end Ethan Wolf below the top-51 threshold, meaning it only really cost New Orleans $190,000 to bring back Montgomery. Without cheating with a calculator, who can tell me how many times $190,000 goes into $600,000?
While every player the Saints sign this year won’t agree to a minimum salary, finding extra resources here and there is critical. It’s not unrealistic to say the meager savings New Orleans created in this last-second restructure will allow them to add another player or two to at least round out the depth chart. And that’s on top of the $7 million in outright savings the Saints can now work with by releasing Jenkins. They’re far from finished in the climb towards cap compliance, but these moves will do a lot to help.
