The team could easily do it, but why haven't they?
One of the New Orleans Saints' signature moves is the contract restructure. For years, with nearly $100 million in negative cap space, the Saints have always restructured all of their contracts to get to the positive, not release players (unless they wanted to), and sign players. It has made fanbases, analysts, and content creators mad for years, but the Saints always did it.
For those years, the Saints had to do so because they needed to get to the positive, and because of that, it pushes the cap to other years, and when the cap raises each year, the hit is not as bad. For the first time in a long, long time, the Saints only had to make one or two moves to get into the green, and any other restructures after that were for spending money. All the money moved in the future was also not important because the Saints have around $100 million in cap space next offseason.
As a result, the Saints have been very selective about whom they want to restructure. It has been players who should be here for at least two more seasons. These have been players like Juwan Johnson or Chase Young. Before today, the Saints had three more candidates to restructure: Cesar Ruiz, Carl Granderson, and Pete Werner. Still, the Saints really didn't need to do the contract moves with any of these players because they have cap space. Still, there could be a move on the way because New Orleans restructured Granderson's contract.
I could focus on the move itself and what it could lead to, but I think it's more important to talk about what the Saints didn't do. Out of the three names remaining, Granderson was the clear only option for the Saints to restructure, but why?
Ruiz and Werner both had disappointing 2025 seasons. Each had their moments, showing why they deserve to be on the team, but also had many bad plays. For Werner, defenses would target him in the run game, and he would get dominated by any blocker he faced. In Ruiz's case, the run blocking was poor, and there were too many times when a massive pass-blocking mistake led to a play being completely blown up.
Both players' futures with the team are massive unknowns, and there is a real chance each could be traded away if replacements are found in the draft or free agency. So, restructuring their contracts would be a massive mistake and make no sense. To at least keep flexibility, the Saints should not touch those contracts.