The New Orleans Saints have salary cap space.
Three players have given them cap relief in Carl Granderson, Khalen Saunders and Cesar Ruiz. The moves help the Saints pick up $13.73 million in space. Other restructures that have been done by New Orleans include Demario Davis, Derek Carr and Erik McCoy.
Heading into the offseason, Ruiz and Granderson were among two of the Top-10 salary cap hits for the Saints. So, it's hardly a surprise to see their deals getting restructured. For Ruiz, his base salary of $9.15 million gets reduced to the minimum, with the difference going to a signing bonus. That's a common practice, as the player isn't out any money when restructures happen.
As for Granderson, he also had his base salary of $7.73 million reduced down to the minimum and had the variance converted into a signing bonus. Ruiz has a cap hit of $14.196 million for 2026, while Granderson's goes to $18.06 million. You can see the full details here.
Khalen Saunders, like Nathan Shepherd, was entering the final year of his original three-year, $15 million contract. Shepherd got a one-year extension, and Saunders had his roster bonuses and base salary converted into a bonus. A void year was also added.
If the Saints want to pick up additional cap space, they can also look at other players. Nothing has been done with Cam Jordan or Taysom Hill yet, while Tyrann Mathieu and Alvin Kamara could be other candidates New Orleans could look to in order to pick up some spending.
