David Onyemata has larger 2023 cap hit on Saints than Falcons

What is better than signing a quality player away from your heated division rival? Signing away a quality player from your rival while your rival has to endure a bigger cap hit for him than you do—that is exactly the situation surround the Falcons, David Onyemata, and the Saints.

The Saints will have to eat a bigger dead cap hit from Onyemata in 2023 than the Falcons will after they signed him to a three-year deal. It is a giant win for ATL.

Falcons to incur a smaller cap hit following signing of David Onyemata than the Saints in 2023

The Atlanta Falcons have now stolen from their rival New Orleans Saints a few times over the past few years. It started with hiring of Terry Fontenot in 2021, the hiring of Ryan Nielsen recently, and now with the signing of David Onyemata.

Also Read: The Atlanta Falcons agree to a deal with free agent safety Jessie Bates.

Signing Onyemata was one of the first moves the Falcons made once the legal tampering period kicked off on Monday.

It isn’t a small contract but adding a reliable defensive lineman is a solid move by the Falcons who need it. But the real story in all of this is the cap situation. Onyemata will take up $8 million of the Falcons cap space, while the Saints have to eat $10 million in dead cap after restructuring his deal in years prior.

That is hilarious, especially when you consider where the Saints sit in their cap situation. Just like every year, they are near the bottom of the league in cap space and have been fighting to even get under the limit prior to Wednesday afternoon.

This all means that Onyemata will take up 4.6% of the Saints cap space compared to 3.5% of the Falcons’. It is a win-win for us, we get a reliable player who will also hurt our rivals not just on the field in 2023, but off the field as well.

For some reason New Orleans still doesn’t realize that pushing money down the road does nothing but hurt you in the future. Sometimes—as the Falcons know—you have to bite the bullet for the long run, but we won’t complain about seeing the Saints being content at sitting at mediocrity.