Saints to Release Marcus Maye

The Saints will be releasing safety Marcus Maye according to Jordan Schultz of Bleacher Report.

Maye had signed a three year, $22.5 million contract with the Saints as a free agent in 2022, but availability was an issue for Maye during his two years as a Saint. Maye only appeared in 17 games in two years for the Saints, including missing three games due to suspension. Maye will leave the team with $8.456 million in dead money which would only open up $1.19 million in cap room for the Saints if he is not designated a post June 1 cut.

The wording from Schultz’ report would certainly indicate that the Saints plan on making Maye a June 1 cut, which is interesting. At this time the Saints already have two contracts structured in a way where they have to be released as a post June 1 cut- QB Jameis Winston and WR Michael Thomas. Since you are only allowed two post June 1 designations that would seem to leave Maye as the odd man out (his dead money would be less than the others on a standard release) unless the team is actively working to re-sign one of the other two players. Thomas would be the logical one of the two and he was in a similar contract situation last year when he and the Saints agreed to continue together rather than releasing him as originally intended. Just something to keep an eye on.

If Maye is a post June 1 cut, he will count for $9.65 million on the Saints salary cap through June 1. On June 2nd the number would drop to $2.414 million, opening up $7.235 million in cap room for the Saints. His 2025 dead money would be $6.042 million under that scenario. It is possible that Maye’s roster status was negatively impacted by the salary cap growing so much. Without that added cap room the Saints may have been in a position where they had to restructure Maye’s contract rather than releasing him so they could be compliant with the 2024 salary cap.