Saints ask OL Jahri Evans to rework contract or be releasedWith...

Saints ask OL Jahri Evans to rework contract or be released

With the New Orleans Saints trying to get under the salary cap by March 10, the team has reached out to guard Jahri Evans to rework his contract, sources told The Times-Picayune.

The Saints are about $20 million over the NFL’s projected salary cap of $143 million for each team next season.

The Saints cannot afford to bring back Evans and fellow guard Ben Grubbs at their current salaries. Grubbs’ 2015 cap number is $9.6 million.

Saints officials have had several talks with Evans and his representatives in the past few weeks about the 31-year-old Pro Bowl guard’s status for 2015 and beyond, according to league sources.

Those talks have included the possibility of a pay cut as Evans, who is slated to make $7.5 million in salary and bonuses in 2015, would carry a cap hit of $11 million. In 2016, his salary and bonuses escalate to $8.7 million with a cap number of $10.2 million.

With those numbers, the Saints also informed Evans’ camp that an outright release could be a possibility. And it’s not off the table yet, particularly if the two sides cannot reach an agreement in the coming weeks on restructuring Evans’ deal. Evans signed a seven-year, $56.7 million contract in 2010 that made him the highest-paid interior lineman in the NFL at the time.

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