METAIRIE, La. -- No team was more hamstrung by the NFL’s reduced salary cap than the New Orleans Saints, who began the offseason nearly $100 million over the threshold.
Yes, the Saints put themselves in this position by living dangerously close to the cap for more than a decade. But like every other team in the league, they had been operating with the expectation the cap would keep rising from last year’s high of $198.2 million per team -- maybe by a large margin once new TV deals and the 17-game schedule kicked in. Instead, the cap plummeted to $182.