The New Orleans Saints have begun their annual cleaning of the salary cap by finalizing the expected restructure of OT Ryan Ramczyk’s contract to pave the way for Ramczyk to officially retire this summer. Ramczyk, who had an outstanding seven year run with the Saints, is one of the players who paved the way for right tackles to be paid closer to the level of left tackles when he signed his $19.2 million per year contract extension in June of 2021. At the time the only right tackles who were paid closer to the left tackle level were those who teams felt would be able to market themselves as a left tackle in free agency. Ramczyk spent all of 2024 on the PUP list and many expected that he would retire this year.

To help the Saints salary cap, Ramczyk agreed to eliminate his $18 million base salary for 2025 and reduce it to the minimum of $1.255 million. This frees up $16.745 million in cap room, allowing the Saints to carry him on the roster at a $12.33 million cap figure until June 2nd at which point he should likely retire. Prior to this the Saints would have had to carry his cap figure at a $29 million number if they wanted to use the June 1 cut.

Ramczyk’s contract still has $23.066 million in dead money and by using the June 1 release the Saints will be able to split that up across two seasons at $11.083 million in 2025 and $11.983 million in 2026. Overall this puts the Saints in about a $12 million better position with the salary cap than if they released him or allowed him to officially retire in March.

The Saints still have a ton of work to do for 2025. Following this restructure they are still approximately $50 million over the 2025 salary cap, $27 million worse off than the next closest team.