Taysom Hill creates $7.75 million in cap space with restructuring

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With Drew Brees finally retired, the Saints can get to work on their post-Brees quarterback plan.

Step one: Sign Taysom Hill to a new contract that isn’t really a new contract.

The carefully crafted initial tweet from Adam Schefter of ESPN says that the “[d]etails are great,” and that it’s a four-year $140 million extension. Although Schefter can perhaps find some plausible deniability in the precise meaning of “great,” it’s all fake and it’s all phony. The restructuring is a device for creating 2021 cap space, and nothing more.

The four-year extension, which pays out $35 million per year, is fully voidable. Schefter eventually mentions that, but there will be a percentage of media and fans who fail to fully understand what’s happening; based on his initial tweet, some will think the Saints are paying Hill $35 million per year when they most definitely aren’t.

Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Hill simply gets the $12.159 million he was supposed to earn this year. The addition of the four phony years, regardless of fake salaries, allows for the creation of $7.75 million in cap space.

As the source explained it when asked point blank what Hill gets, Hill gets what he was due to get in fully-guaranteed fashion. Indirectly, he gets the benefit of extra cap dollars for a team desperate both to comply with the cap and to have enough space to maneuver.

He will never get $140 million over four years under this deal. Presumably, the Saints could have picked any number they wanted. The number chosen, coupled with the carefully reckless way the numbers initially were presented, will result in some mistakenly thinking that Hill is getting paid obscenely more than he is.