Why the Saints can’t trade Marshon Lattimore ahead of the 2024 NFL trade deadline

Editor’s update: WELP! Congrats to the Washington Commanders in accomplishing this trade. I don’t know what the Saints are thinking from a cap perspective, but clearly GM Mickey Loomis has zero concerns about the future of the Saints.

The New Orleans Saints fired head coach Dennis Allen on Monday, but that is only the start of what is needed to turn things around the Big Easy. The Saints are 2-7 and sitting in last place in the NFC South. They lost one of their biggest weapons for an unknown amount of time when Chris Olave was carted off after a big hit in Week 9. Oh, and their salary cap situation is facing a likely doom spiral.

The NFL trade deadline is 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, November 5, and the Saints are among the teams predicted to be sellers ahead of the deadline. They have a host of veterans teams might be interested in, including cornerback Marshon Lattimore. ESPN’s Adam Schefter noted that teams have inquired into the availability of the four-time Pro Bowler.

Technically, yes. I’ll go through the salary cap numbers below, but sure, they can trade anybody on their roster that does not have a no-trade clause in their contract. The bigger question is what salary cap consequences are they prepared to face as a result of such a trade?

Lattimore’s contract would be easy for another team to take on in a trade. His cap hit the rest of the 2024 season would be a prorated portion of his $1.21 million base salary. The rest of his cap hit for this season includes signing and option bonus money previously paid out. He is due $18 million in total 2025 pay and $18.5 million in total 2026 pay, but none of that is guaranteed, per Over The Cap.

This trade would clear a prorated portion of $1.21 million and the Saints would carry $13.4 million in dead money in 2024. Where this gets tricky for New Orleans is looking ahead to 2025. The team is currently projected to be $71,408,567 over the effective salary cap next year, per Over The Cap. If they trade Lattimore, they would lock in $31.66 million in dead money for 2025 because this is a post-June 1 trade. That means the dead money is split between the rest of this season and next season. (Dead money is cash already paid to a player that hasn’t been accounted for on the salary cap.)

The Saints already need to clear more than $71 million, and dead money is not something that can be cleared out once a player has been moved. If they trade Lattimore, they’re just further leveraging themselves against future years’ caps. They would in turn need to find more people to trade, cut, or otherwise renegotiate contracts to clear more cap space.

The Saints have long been part of a running joke about the salary cap not being entirely real given how much they have kicked the can on it. Theoretically they can keep kicking it, but we’re seeing the result of this strategy: they’re a mediocre to bad team that cannot afford to upgrade their roster because they’re too busy paying for the mediocrity that currently exists.

At some point, the Saints will have to hit the reset button and take the pain of rebuilding everything. It’s just a matter of when they’re willing to do it, and who gets to take the lumps during what will be some very lean years.

The Saints CAN trade Lattimore, but the numbers above and their overall history suggests they won’t trade Lattimore. It’s not how they operate. They’ve never had a player taking up $31 million of their cap space. The highest cap hit they’ve ever had in a single season was $24 million for Drew Brees in 2018. When he retired following the 2020 season, he and the Saints waited to file his retirement paperwork until June 11th so they could split his remaining dead cap hit over the 2021 and 2022 seasons.

Anything is possible, but if the Saints choose to trade Marshon Lattimore before 4 p.m. ET on November 5th, I will print this article out and eat it (Disclaimer: I will not print this article out and eat it).