Mark Ingram and the New Orleans Saints have agreed to a restructured contract.

Ingram was slated to make $3 million in base salary in 2016; now he'll make $765,000, with the remaining $2.235 million converted to signing bonus.

Ingram's salary cap number would grow by $745,000 in 2017 and 2018. His cap number will now be $5.245 million in 2017 and $6.245 in 2018.

The New Orleans Saints have signed Nick Fairley.

Fairley spent last season with the Rams.

Per Pro Football Focus, he has never played more than 69.6 percent of his team's snaps on defense. He did that back in 2013, and his snap percentage has dropped each of the last two years to 55.7 (2014) and then 38.8 percent (2015).

The New Orleans Saints have matched an offer sheet Josh Hill signed with the Chicago Bears.

ESPN NFL Insider Adam Caplan reported earlier this week that the deal is worth up to $7.5 million over three years, with $3.25 million guaranteed.

The Saints' decision was only mildly surprising. They are tight on salary-cap space and have already signed tight ends Coby Fleener and Michael Hoomanawanui this offseason.

Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints have agreed upon a five-year extension worth in excess of $45 million through 2020.

Payton, who has coached the Saints for 10 years, was already one of the NFL's highest-paid coaches at $8.5 million in his previous deal, which ran through 2017.

The Saints considered parting ways with Payton if there was a deal to be made with a strong enough compensation package, but nothing materialized. 

Payton said Wednesday that the contract extension became a "formality" after that point, but there was no rush to get it done. 

"There's so much of you in there, that I don't see myself working anywhere else," Payton said of his decade in New Orleans. "There's been really good stability and consistency at ownership. We just had dinner with Mr. B. last night, Mickey, and I think that doesn't guarantee anything, but it gives you a chance. It's been very functional.

"That stability, obviously, I don't take for granted."

Drew Brees is the leading spokesman of AdvoCare, a multilevel marketing company that generated $719 million in net revenue last year.

AdvoCare boasts an army of 640,000 salespeople, up from 97,000 in 2010. These independent distributors sell energy drinks, shakes and supplements directly to consumers. In 2014, only 0.54 percent made $10,000 from the company and just 0.06 percent exceeded $100,000.

As AdvoCare has grown, it has signed dozens of high-profile athletes as endorsers, including NFL QBs Andy Dalton, Philip Rivers and Alex Smith, MLB pitcher Doug Fister and CrossFit champion Rich Froning.

The promise is that if you sign up for AdvoCare, you can reap "rewarding" financial results -- draws tens of thousands of new distributors every year. But an Outside the Lines/ESPN The Magazine investigation has found that few of those salespeople will ever achieve that vision. 

"They plant the seed that you're gonna make money -- life-changing money," says Gabriel Chavez, who joined in 2010.

While MLMs do rely on direct sales of products to customers, they also pay their salespeople commissions based on their recruits' purchases and, in turn, on the purchases of their recruits' recruits.

Salespeople are given the line: "If Drew Brees takes it, why wouldn't you?"

Brees, along with the other athletes who sign with the company -- Carli Lloyd, Sam Bradford and Wes Welker are all past endorsers -- are integral to a popular AdvoCare sales and recruitment technique called the "Bulletproof Shield." 

Since joining AdvoCare, Brees says he's been stopped on the streets by "literally thousands of people" who tell him how the company has changed their lives: "I have literally NEVER had a single person come up to me and say anything negative about AdvoCare products or the business model." He adds, "I see the lives that it changes, not only as a direct result of taking the products but the financial independence it gives many of its distributors.

"Why are all these people involved in AdvoCare?" he continues. "Because it's a viable business, and they believe in the products, what they are selling and in AdvoCare. And so do I."