The New Orleans Saints have had to take a long, hard look at some of the contracts on the books already this offseason.
New Orleans has restructured a handful of deals over the last few weeks in preparation of free agency. The Saints have done a great job and created enough cap space to make moves like re-signing Chase Young and Juwan Johnson. New Orleans also signed Justin Reid in a much-needed move to bolster the safety room.
All in all, it has been a pretty good offseason so far for the Saints. One move that the Saints made was restructuring seven-year veteran Nathan Shepherd's deal. One thing that is nice about his restructuring is the fact that it also added a new year to the deal, according to NewOrleans.Football's Mike Triplett.
"Saints and Shepherd also added one new year to the deal at a salary of $3.969 for the 2026 season (he was originally supposed to be a free agent after this season)," Triplett said.
Shepherd spent the last two seasons in New Orleans and now has ties to the Saints for the next two as well. Last year, he had 1.5 sacks and 37 total tackles in 16 games played. In 2023, he had 3.5 sacks and started all 17 games for the Saints.
Keeping him around beyond the 2025 season will just give Saints' front office one less thing to worry about as they continue building this roster.
Saints Legend Reveals Motivation To Return To New Orleans
The New Orleans Saint have done a good job minimizing turnover this offseason by keeping a lot of the team's pending free agents in town and also guys that seemingly were at risk of being released.
New Orleans has some serious cap issues and has pushed some of those issues to next year thanks in large part to contract restructurings. For weeks there was chatter about different guys who could be cut and rumors were running rampant.
One guy whose name was floated in social media rumors was eight-time Pro Bowler Cameron Jordan. He has spent his entire 14-year career as a member of the Saints and luckily isn't going anywhere.
He discussed his motivation for staying in New Orleans on the “Off the Edge” podcast.
"My agent calls me, he was like 'Hey, you know, we've got to sort of get something done,'" Jordan said. "Got to check around the league if you want to go somewhere...I was like if I have to go somewhere, I will go. Ranted a little bit. I was like this is where I should be. My contract says I have another year on it so unless they cut me I'm not leaving or I'm not taking a pay reduction...
"Do I really want to go somewhere for the next two years or three years? We're going to take this year-by-year. Year No. 15, let's figure this out. Family loves it here. The community work that I do here is a part of me. It's such a big part of me...At the end of the day, this is where I want to be. I've always said I want to win a Super Bowl in the Black and Gold."
Jordan is someone who has made it clear that he never wants to leave the Saints. Hopefully, they can reward him and his loyalty with a Super Bowl win.
