Death. Taxes. The New Orleans Saints in salary cap trouble. These are some of the simple realities in life, and this year is no different as the Saints still sit more than $42 million in the red as of this writing.
Knowing that cap trouble was again coming, the Saints restructured cornerback Marshon Lattimore’s contract back in January. That reduced his 2024 cap hit by $11 million, to $14.6 million and made it easier to trade him by dropping his base salary to $1.2 million while converting $13.79 million of his base salary into an option bonus that does not have to be exercised until one week before the regular season starts. The cap hit for that bonus can also be spread out over multiple years, like a signing bonus.
The Saints simply won’t gain much by cutting Lattimore, even down to designating him as a post-June 1 cut. He has some inherent trade value anyway, and that’s a path to at least getting something for him.
But if the Saints exercised the aforementioned bonus and trade him before June 1, they could take on as much as $45 million in dead money. After June 1 allows that dead money to be spread out.
Lattimore won Defensive Rookie of the Year and made four Pro Bowls in his first five years with the Saints. The last two seasons have not been as good, as he has missed a total of 17 games.
