Saints Clear $16.7M In 2025 Cap Space By Reworking RT Ryan Ramczyk’s Contract

This offseason will be a massive one for the New Orleans Saints. Alongside hiring a new head coach, they'll need to navigate the salary cap in a unique way once again. 

The first domino of that process fell on Wednesday morning. 

Ryan Ramczyk set to retire

According to reports, Ryan Ramczyk, a former Pro Bowl tackle for the Saints, has reduced his base salary to the veteran minimum, opening the door to retirement. Ramczyk missed all of this past season due to his degenerative knee injury. 

With the move, the Saints cleared $16.7 million in cap space.

The New Orleans Saints have begun their annual cleaning of the salary cap by finalizing the expected restructure of OT Ryan Ramczyk’s contract to pave the way for Ramczyk to officially retire this summer. Ramczyk, who had an outstanding seven year run with the Saints, is one of the players who paved the way for right tackles to be paid closer to the level of left tackles when he signed his $19.2 million per year contract extension in June of 2021... Ramczyk spent all of 2024 on the PUP list and many expected that he would retire this year.

To help the Saints salary cap, Ramczyk agreed to eliminate his $18 million base salary for 2025 and reduce it to the minimum of $1.255 million. This frees up $16.745 million in cap room, allowing the Saints to carry him on the roster at a $12.33 million cap figure until June 2nd at which point he should likely retire. Prior to this the Saints would have had to carry his cap figure at a $29 million number if they wanted to use the June 1 cut. -- OverTheCap

After the move, New Orleans remains around $50 million above the 2025 salary cap. More restructures and tough decisions are set to follow this one. 

This decision with Ramczyk puts New Orleans in about a $12 million better position in regards to the salary cap than if they released him or allowed him to officially retire in March, according to OverTheCap. It made plenty of sense for both sides to get it done now.

The biggest clue

The likelihood of Ramczyk's retirement only grew when he was in attendance in the Superdome, looking much thinner than normal. He had lost a noticeable amount of weight during his time away from the field.

The decision regarding his contract won't surprise the Saints. This has been on the table since last offseason, and it is part of the reason they took Taliese Fuaga with their first-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.

Fuaga was very impressive as a rookie and slots in as a cornerstone piece for the Saints offense for years to come. 

For Ramczyk, it is an unfortunately abrupt end to a fantastic playing career. Taken in the incredible 2017 Saints draft class, he was one of the best tackles in football over the last seven years. 

Now only star running back Alvin Kamara remains from that draft class. Players like Marcus Williams, Alex Anzalone, Trey Hendrickson, and Marshon Lattimore have all moved on to new teams over the course of the past couple years.