The New Orleans Saints Just Saved a Ton of Money

The New Orleans Saints had a pretty simple objective, at least on paper, heading into this off-season...fix the defense. Which of course, sounds a lot easier than it actually is. But it also sounds CHEAPER than it actually is.

But the Saints are going to get a little extra cash to play with when it comes to the salary cap. Something that didn't escape the attention of ESPN's Field Yates:

Yup, a fat $7.8 million cap "bonus" added today to the Saints checkbook. The bonus comes from the release of Jairus Byrd. Which may actually bring up a dilemma for the Saints as they look to fix their defense.

See, when the team signed Byrd in 2014 it felt like the one missing piece that the Saints needed to become dominant on defense. They pulled him away from the Buffalo Bills with that massive contract, 6-years and $56 million, that they terminated this year. They went all-in that off-season, the same way some want them to do this year. Difference is, they went all-in on Byrd, not on the defense.

How is that different?

Instead of spreading the money around between multiple position upgrades and extra depth, they put the whole thing on a single player. So when he gets hurt, or under-performs, you've just lost all of that value.

So what should the Saints do here? Well, don't expect them to go all-in on a single guy again...so if they pull off a name like Elvis Dumervil, Darrelle Revis, or Sam Shields, they either got a big discount, or made the same mistake twice.

Watch for value plays, like getting a former Big Ten stud at MLB for pennies on the dollar:

If they can go stack up players like Max Bullough for depth and little investment, they can find some diamonds in the rough, and not put all of their chips on red.