The Saints plan to release Brandin Cooks. The specific plan hatched by the Saints and Cooks, however, has complicated the situation. Possibly to the point that the Sants won’t be able to release him.

Here’s what happened, per a source with knowledge of the situation — and based on contract documents PFT has reviewed. The Saints agreed that Cooks would be released with an agreement by the player to forego all rights to the balance of his 2025 salary as termination pay, if/when he clears waivers.

It’s a device that was first employed with prominence in the Browns’ decision to release receiver Odell Beckham Jr. after the 2021 trade deadline. Beckham got his freedom, and the Browns didn’t owe Beckham the no-offset payment for the rest of the money he was due to make that season, if he cleared waivers.

As to Cooks, there’s a belief in league circles that he has a specific team that he wants to join. A contender, most likely. And there was a concern that another team would claim Cooks, thwarting his effort to get to wherever he wants to go.

And so the Saints and Cooks worked out a new contract, one that contained a poison pill aimed at making it unattractive to claim him on waivers. The revised deal, a copy of which PFT has obtained, increased Cooks’s fully-guaranteed pay in 2026 from $1.69 million to $5.94 million, if Cooks is on the roster on November 21.

This would have allowed the Saints to release Cooks by 4:00 p.m. ET on November 20, with the team that claims Cook on waivers accepting full responsibility for $5.94 million next year.

Here’s the problem. NFL rules prohibit a team from creating a deterrent to waivers claims. The revision to the Cooks contract was obviously done for that reason. It gave the Saints a window to waive him before the $5.94 million became fully guaranteed in 2026, and it would have stuck the team that claimed the contract on waivers with the obligation.

Apparently after the Saints were told by the league that this wouldn’t fly, the Saints re-revised the contract, restoring the full guarantee to $1.69 million and giving the Saints until November 26 at 4:00 p.m. ET to release him in order to avoid it. Which means that, in order to get a free and clear release, Cooks is willing to give up both the balance of his current $1.26 million salary (he’s owed $420,000 from Week 13 through Week 18) and the $1.69 million guarantee in his 2026 salary.

So now, in theory, the Saints will cut him before the revised guarantee vesting date of November 27. Unless they can’t.

The NFL’s waiver rules contain two separate provisions that apply to deterring waiver claims. The consequence to the team that tries to do it seems to be a prohibition against waiving the player for the balance of the season.

Rule No. 9, titled “Deterrent to Claims”, says this: “If, in any year, a club renegotiates, revises, alters, or supersedes any player contract in a manner that would constitute a deterrent to claims of that contract by another club (e.g., salary guarantees or trade limitations), the club holding such contract may not subsequently request waivers on that contract for the balance of the season.”

In English, Rule No. 9 means that, if (as happened here) the Saints revised the Cooks contract with the goal of getting another team to claim the contract on waivers, the revised contract cannot be waived.

OK. Fine. All the Saints had to do was re-revise the deal, restoring the original $1.69 million guarantee for 2026, right? Maybe not.

Rule No. 24, titled “Waivers Prohibited After Contract Revision,” says this: “Clubs are prohibited from renegotiating, revising, altering, or superseding any contract in a manner that would constitute a deterrent to claims of that contract by another club (for example, ‘guaranteed’ or ‘no trade’ provisions). If such a renegotiation or revision is executed, the club is prohibited from subsequently requesting waivers for the player in that season.” (Emphasis added.)

In English, Rule No. 24 means that, once a team has revised a contract to deter waiver claims, it can’t be fixed. The player cannot be waived, even under a re-revised deal.

As of Friday, Cooks has still not been waived. Will the Saints do it? Will the league (which, as we hear it, may have given the Saints an incorrect interpretation of the rules) allow Cooks to be waived?

Per the source: “There is a story here that some want to go away quickly. But because the contracts were posted, teams know and want blood.”

There’s another wrinkle to this story, one that the league may or may not explore. The mere fact that the contract was revised to deter a waivers claim — with Cooks giving up more than $2.1 million to get his freedom to sign wherever he wants to sign — points to the very real possibility of the Saints, Cooks’s agent, and the team he’s hoping to sign with colluding to violate the tampering rules.

This is not the same as the Saints giving Cooks permission to talk to other teams. The trade deadline has come and gone. There’s no reason for another team to talk to Cooks. The Saints have two options: Keep Cooks or waive him. The first revision reflected an effort to help Cooks avoid a waivers claim. The second revision attempted to clean up the mess.

Even if the league allows the Saints to waive Cooks (as Rule No. 24 is written, it should not), there is (as the source put it) “a full-blown conspiracy involving the Saints, another team, and Cooks’s agent.”

Added the source, “They all worked together.”

And if the NFL allows Cooks to be waived despite the language of Rule No. 24, the league is part of the conspiracy, too.