The New Orleans Saints recently made it sound like Derek Carr was going to be the team's starting quarterback in 2025.
The team hasn't shied away from that and he will be. Carr signed a four-year, $150 million deal and has two years left on the deal. There's been a lot of chatter about how the team was going to handle his contract. He had an expected cap hit over $51 million for the 2025 season and the Saints obviously are in a tough spot cap-wise.
New Orleans reportedly is restructuring his deal, which could drop his cap hit down to just over $20 million, but there is no pay cut, according to ESPN's Katherine Terrell.
"The Saints are restructuring Derek Carr's contract to open up $30.9 million in 2025 cap space, according to a source on Saturday," Terrell said. "The Saints plan to convert Carr's $30 million base salary and $10 million guaranteed roster bonus to a signing bonus, pushing money to future years and lowering his 2025 cap figure to $20.4 million. Carr's base salary was set to become fully guaranteed Friday.
"Restructuring Carr's contract ties the quarterback to the Saints for at least the 2025 season and increases Carr's 2026 cap figure to $69.2 million in the final season of his contract. That means the Saints will likely face questions about his contract again next year."
The surprising part isn't the no pay cut. He signed a contract with the Saints and both sides agreed to it. Plus, he made it clear that he didn't want a pay cut. It's good to get his cap figure down from $51 million to $20 million, but a $69 million cap hit for next year is astronomical.
Even if he doesn't play with the Saints next year, there will be a huge dead cap number if his cap hit is that high. All in all, it's a complicated situation but at least New Orleans knows who its quarterback is going to be in 2025.
