Newly acquired Saints LB Kiko Alonso adjusts deal

The Dolphins planned to release linebacker Kiko Alonso until the Saints agreed to a swap sending fellow ‘backer Vince Biegel to South Beach. Before the deal was finalized, Alonso agreed to an adjusted contract to facilitate the trade, Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears. The revised contract will give Alonso a fully-guaranteed $5M – with no offsets – by next week. The Saints will pay $4M of that sum while the Dolphins will kick in $1M. Meanwhile, the last year of his contract remains untouched – Alonso is set to earn $6.4M in base salary with an $8.2M cap figure in 2020, though the Saints could escape that year with little financial consequence. Cutting Alonso before the start of the year would save $6.4M against the cap with just $1.76M in dead money. Traditional metrics portray Alonso as a solid linebacker who can defend against the pass. But, despite his five interceptions over the last three years, he gets little love from the advanced metrics for his coverage ability. Algorithms, schmalgorithms,

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