METAIRIE, La. -- When it comes to salary-cap management in the NFL, there's no bigger killer than "dead money."

And this year, the New Orleans Saints are carrying an unhealthy amount of it -- $21.65 million, which ranks second most in the NFL, according to ESPN Stats and Information.

That's the price the Saints paid for trading away tight end Jimmy Graham, guard Ben Grubbs and receiver Kenny Stills, and releasing linebacker Curtis Lofton and running back Pierre Thomas, among others, before their contracts were up. The Saints still have to count the remaining portions of all those players' original signing bonuses against their salary cap, even though they aren't on the roster anymore.

The Saints' biggest dead-money hit this year comes from tight end Jimmy Graham ($9 million). Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

That dead money is eating up roughly 15 percent of New Orleans' salary cap this year. (As of Friday morning, the Saints were about $1.75 million under their adjusted cap limit of $145 million. They will likely need at least a million more to fit in their draft picks.)

The good news for New Orleans is that by wiping all those deals off the books this year, the Saints' salary cap is shaping up to be more manageable in 2016 than it has been in the recent past. (More on that below).

Also, most of the Saints' dead money this year came from trading players -- so it's not like they threw it all away with nothing in return.

How it works: The Saints' biggest dead-money hit this year comes from Graham ($9 million). That's three-fourths of the $12 million signing bonus Graham received last year as part of his four-year, $40 million contract. For salary-cap purposes, that bonus was originally scheduled to count $3 million per year against the Saints' cap over the life of the deal. However, since Graham was traded after just one year, the Saints now have to count the remaining $9 million against this year's cap.

But the Saints got a pretty good return for Graham from the Seattle Seahawks (center Max Unger and a first-round pick). And the Seahawks had to eat the remaining $2.2 million in dead money from Unger's contract.

Likewise, the Miami Dolphins agreed to eat a whopping $7.8 million in dead money from linebacker Dannell Ellerbe's contract when they traded him to the Saints for Stills, which makes Ellerbe a bargain for New Orleans. That's also part of the reason why Miami ranks No. 1 in the NFL in dead money this year at $23.7 million.

It's worse when a team has to absorb a big chunk of dead money for flat-out releasing a player who didn't live out the full life of his contract. For instance, Lofton is counting $5 million against New Orleans' cap this year, and the Saints got nothing in return. Grubbs falls somewhere in between, since he's counting $6 million against the Saints' cap, and they only received a fifth-round draft pick in return.

Those three (Graham, Grubbs and Lofton) are by far the three biggest dead-money hits for New Orleans this year. Thomas is next at $830,000, followed by Khairi Fortt at $309,000 and Champ Bailey at $250,000. Stills only counts for $97,000 in dead money.

I've never been particularly critical about the way the Saints have managed their salary cap in recent years -- repeatedly pushing cap costs into the future by back-loading the cap costs in players' contracts. I'm fine with that as long as the Saints are signing guys in their prime that they expect to play out the entire life of their contracts. I don't even have a problem with the way they structured Drew Brees' $100 million deal since they needed the cap space earlier in his contract and had time to prepare for his big hits of $26.4 million this year and $27.4 million next year.

However, general manager Mickey Loomis has often admitted that New Orleans' limited cap space reduces the margin for error. And it really hurts a team like the Saints when they miss on their big contracts.

The Saints signed Lofton, Grubbs, Brodrick Bunkley, and David Hawthorne and re-signed Marques Colston to big deals in 2012. None of those guys wound up earning the full value of their contracts, with two being dumped this year and the other three agreeing to pay cuts to stay.

Brighter future: The best asset for the Saints' business model is that the salary cap has started to soar throughout the NFL over the past two years -- and should only continue to rise.

The way things are shaping up for 2016, the Saints might actually start next offseason under the salary cap for a change.

As of now, the Saints have a total of 35 players under contract for 2016 at a total of $132 million in salary-cap costs, according to ESPN Stats and Info. That's the highest in the NFL. But the NFL's cap should rise above $150 million next year, and the Saints should be able to stay under that even when their top 51 salaries are factored in before the start of free agency.

Plus, only two Saints starters, defensive ends Cameron Jordan and Akiem Hicks, are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents next year -– though both could command big contracts.

The Saints only have 16 players under contract for 2017, with a total cap cost of $67 million. That doesn't include Brees or left tackle Terron Armstead, among others whose contracts expire that year.