What Up With Dat?: Short and Sweet

by Dave Cariello on Feb 12, 2012 1:26 PM CST in What Up With Dat?

Below are my answers to last weeks reader questions submitted Thursday. Special thanks to all those that participated. Feel free to continue the discussion on any of these topics in the comment section below.

Is Will Smith gone? - Sylvain G.

Personally, I think so. If the Saints really are tight against the cap and need to free up some money, Smith's $7 million contract is a fair place to start. He's also due a $1 million roster bonus on March 27th. Unless Smith is willing to re-negotiate or the Saints are able to work some magic with this cap carryover loophole, he'll probably be a casualty.

Choose one: A. We keep Nicks or B. We keep Colston and Meachem. - Grizz

Ouch, tough choice. Still gotta go with Carl Nicks on this one, even if it means giving up two players. Nick's is one of the best players at his position in the entire league. That's hard to find. As much as I love Colston, you just can't say the same. Meachem is obviously nowhere near the best at his position.

Do you think challeneges to bad calls might be insituded this year? - Cajun C.

By bad calls I am assuming you mean penalties. And if my assumption is correct, then my answer is no. They will probably never allow challenges to overturn missed or incorrectly called penalties. At least not this year. I think that opens a Pandora's Box of trouble.

Will we have a big-name FA acquisition? Or do you think we'll mainly build through the draft? Also, do you think that Romeus and Jordan will develop better under SpagNOLA? - Robert S.

I'm sure the Saints will sign someone that fans will get super-excited about. I don't think there's been an off-season in the past three years where the Saints have simply sat on their hands during free agency. They know they're just a few pieces short of another championship and have been aggressive in recent off-seasons to try and acquire those pieces.

As for Spags doing a better job of developing Romeus and Jordan, I sure hope so.

Which 3 passing statistics are the most overrated and which 3 are the most underrated? Completion percentage? Yards per attempt? Yards per completion? QB rating? Total yards per game? TD/interception ratio? Total yards in a season? Total average passing yards per game? 3rd down completion percentage? - Ben D.

Overrated - Total yards in a season, Yards per attempt, Total yards per game.

Underrated - Completion percentage, TD/interception ratio, 3rd down completion percentage.

Do you think the Saints should move training camp to Oxnard, CA? - Hans D.

No. Wouldn't want the players to start getting soft. It would also suck for all the Saints fans here in New Orleans that love to go out and watch the team practice.

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Comments

the roll over loophole.. is not much..

they have done some “unofficial” cap studies at nola.com, mostly by regular guru-aficionado , ukwhodat..

we will have around 27 mill. to sign our top free agents..
some trimming will have to be done or the money will not be there..

by the 9th plague on Feb 12, 2012 2:30 PM CST reply actions

Since I live 70 miles from Oxnard. I would like to see them come 1 week a year.

Colston and Nicks, needs to stay, So does Smith. he is still the BEST we have at DE. Plug the middle and get more pressure up the middle and Watch Smith and Jorden get sacks. Add Romeus to the Package. But he has to be 100% and we got something.

I would like to see the Saints go after Abraham for LB

I would hate to see Meachem go, but I think we have Tallent that can catch the ball. I feel Arringtion can fill his spot easy, I also think A. Tanner can play like Moore.

by Ranger565 on Feb 12, 2012 6:24 PM CST reply actions

OH and Every ball that Arringtion has been thrown too this year, has been caught. with 2 on 3 and long. The guys got it. I know he does.

by Ranger565 on Feb 12, 2012 6:25 PM CST up reply actions

There’s one nice thing about the cap. You can renegotiate somebody’s contract such that they are paid the exact same amount but their “official” salary is the veteran minimum for their seniority, and the rest is considered a (re)signing bonus. This then pushes something 75-90% of the cap hit into future years.

When you have a guy you want to keep but can’t afford him under the cap, converting his salary to a SB is the fastest and easiest way to free up cap space and still keep him anyway.

I suspect this, or at least something more like it, is fairly likely for Smith. We could release him, but it would only free up about 4 million. He has a $10 million cap number (7 million salary, 1 million roster bonus, 2 million as 1/6th of his original signing bonus) this year, but releasing him would hit us for at least 6 million (the three remaining years of his signing bonus allocation). Saving only 4 million and losing our most experienced current DE doesn’t seem like a great idea to me.

But signing him to a renegotiated contract in which the roster bonus is eliminated and he is paid about 1 million in salary and 7 million in “signing” bonus would bring his cap number down to about 5.3 million. That frees up almost five million (instead of only 4) and we get to keep him and use him next year as well.

by FriarBob on Feb 12, 2012 6:59 PM CST reply actions 1 recs