Drew Brees is gone, but the Saints aren’t changing a damn thing
Plus, four things to watch in free agency
Drew Brees retired Sunday, riding into the sunset after a 20-year NFL career. The Saints responded to this expected news in the most Saints way possible; by testing the limits of the league’s salary cap.
Brees gave his egress from the league a news-dump worthy flourish, announcing his decision on Instagram only minutes before the Selection Committee announced its 2021 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament bracket. And though that no-frills, aw-shucks finish was on par with the image the veteran QB has carefully cultivated, New Orleans’ response was a flashing neon sign saying “HEY LOOK AT US.”
The first news to break from the franchise following Brees’ expected retirement? That Taysom Hill would get a nine-figure contract extension in response.
It’s a weird deal for a player with four NFL quarterback starts under his belt. And it’s one that almost certainly won’t come to fruition. Instead, it’s just a ploy to knock another chunk of cash from New Orleans’ awful cap situation.
Those four voidable years exist to absorb the spaced-out delivery of cash Hill was mostly set to receive this upcoming season. But pegging him at a $35 million annual salary — more than every quarterback in the league but Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Deshaun Watson, and Russell Wilson — is a statement that both props Hill up as a possible cornerstone and makes him an easy target.
The immediate reaction to the deal online was derision, because of course it was. Taysom Hill isn’t worth a top-five quarterback salary. It’s arguable whether he’s worth the $16.3 million extension he’d signed last spring. He’s played more on special teams in his Saints career than he has behind center. He moved into the starting slot last year when Brees was injured and responded by challenging the veteran’s status as the master of checkdowns; his 7.0 intended air yards per pass ranked 29th among 37 qualified starting QBs last season.
Teams are jettisoning passers who can’t stretch the field and prizing those who do — that’s how a Matthew Stafford-for-Jared Goff trade saw the Rams send two first-round picks and a third-rounder to Michigan. And while the Hill deal really doesn’t do anything but add a little extra cash to what was a guaranteed one-year contract for the former BYU star, the specifics of the contract certainly suggest New Orleans is saying, at least superficially and in size 60 font, THIS IS OUR GUY.
But their guy is a quarterback who’s thrown 12 passes of 20+ yards in his NFL career. And even if he improves on a useful 2020, there’s almost zero chance the Saints don’t void or restructure his contract when the 2022 offseason comes calling.
So are the Saints signaling they’ll be bucking the NFL’s vertical passing offense trend? That they believe in Hill’s arm after he completed 26 of his 39 passes 10+ yards downfield in his limited tryout last season? That they really, really like his running ability after watching Brees gain 385 total rushing yards in 15 years?
We’ll know more when the offseason officially kicks off this week and free agency rages. New Orleans’ eternally strapped cap situation won’t allow it to wade into any big-ticket players, but there’s one guy who’ll tip general manager Mickey Loomis’s hand: Jameis Winston.
Oh, right. So what about Jameis now?
Loomis has praised Winston as a possible franchise quarterback moving forward. He’s reportedly made him a priority in the midst of Sunday’s madness.
But the difference between what the Saints’ front office has said and what head coach Sean Payton has done on the field is significant. Brees had more broken ribs (13) than Winston had passes thrown (12) in New Orleans’ 18 games last season. When the veteran went down, Payton opted for Hill. When the gadget-play dynamo showcased a Teddy Bridgewater-esque level of game management, Winston became an afterthought.
There’s reason to believe this may not be the case going forward. As previously mentioned, Hill was able to come in and embrace the aspects of the short-range, low-risk gameplan Brees had adopted as his arm power waned late in his career. He was an easy transition for a team too entrenched in the playoff race to make wholesale changes that could cost it important wins.
Nothing about Winston’s career has ever been described as “low-risk,” but his big arm presents an opportunity for a passing game that became predictable — especially as All-Pro Michael Thomas had his skillset distilled down to two words…
Thomas is the kind of player who can turn Winston’s off-kilter deep balls into big gains. No player in the league has been better at ripping potential interceptions away from defenders.
Of course, you could heap similar praise on Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, who were the WR1 and WR2 in Winston’s final year in Tampa … one in which he made league history as the only quarterback to ever throw 30 touchdown passes and 30 interceptions in the same season.
The rest of the supporting cast poses problems as well. Emmanuel Sanders and Jared Cook were cap casualties. They made up nearly 39 percent of the team’s non-running back targets last season. This year’s free agent class is stocked with pass catchers, but the Saints’ cap situation means they’ll have to hope someone decent languishes and is willing to sign for cheap just to play with … Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston, ew. The 2021 draft is home to a talented crop of receivers as well, but any wideout or tight end drafted in the first three rounds is an asset not used on pass rushers, linebackers, or defensive backs that could help keep a championship-caliber defense clicking.
Winston would be a big swing for the New Orleans offense. Brees averaged 6.3 average air yards per pass the last two seasons. Winston, in 2019, clocked in at 10.4 — second-most in the NFL. Putting the ball in his hands means a lot more home run swings and a dip in the number of quick looks for Alvin Kamara, whose yards-after-catch ability played a big role in keeping Brees’ counting stats afloat.
That’s a huge risk, but it falls in line with the big-armed youth movement we’ve seen across the league — and even if Winston is a six-year veteran, he’s still only 27 years old. Loomis and company must have seen something they liked in practice if they continue to sing his praises after throwing just a dozen passes last year. Winston is no Drew Brees, and that may be exactly the point for New Orleans.
***
The Saints treat the salary cap with a level of disdain approached only by the high-spending, star-extending ways of the LA Rams. They entered the 2021 offseason nearly $100 million over the upcoming year’s spending limit, but through cuts, bonuses, restructuring, and — somehow — a contract that makes Taysom Hill worth a theoretical $140 million they now stand at the precipice of hitting next fall with their young core mostly intact.
The question now is whether they’ll part with the newfound tradition of a low-risk, low-distance passing game in order to evolve with the rest of the league. Hill is potentially capable of living in both worlds. Winston, from what we’ve seen over his career, is not. There’s a reasonable chance those two play out one of the weirdest camp QB battles in recent history.
If neither works out, we have a good idea of how Loomis and company will fix it. The answer involves money, some high-profile free agents, and the never-questioned belief the salary cap is simply a fake construct. — CD
NFL Free Agency 2021: Tracking all the rumors, signings, trades, and more, lolllll
Usually, rumors start heating up right before free agency begins, so … soon. Hopefully, anyway. On Sunday, the eve of the legal tampering period, the headlines were either long overdue (Brees retiring, two months after his season ended), expected (Aaron Jones reupping with the Packers), or lacking much juice, pun intended (the 49ers re-signing fullback Kyle Juszczyk).
As of noon Monday, NFL teams can “start” to negotiate with free agents, which means nonstop news for at least the rest of the week. The start of free agency is not a lot of fun if you have to update a zillion trackers and put in an 18-hour day ON YOUR BIRTHDAY (not that I’m speaking from personal experience or anything), but as a fan, it’s one of the best times on the NFL calendar.
And now that I can properly enjoy it, here are a few of the storylines I’m interested in this week:
1. What are the Bears going to do at quarterback?
We here at the Post Route have made it clear that we are very much in favor of Allen Robinson getting a chance to play with a quarterback whose biggest claim to fame is being an NFL quarterback and not 1) a recurring joke on The Good Place or 2) Nickelodeon’s Valuable Player.
Robinson is sticking around on the franchise tag, though the Bears are ready to move on from NVP Mitchell Trubisky and, according to the ESPN report, the feeling is mutual:
The Bears’ ideal scenario would be acquiring either Russell Wilson (who reportedly has the Bears’ atop his trade destination wish list) or Deshaun Warson (who understandably wants to be as far away from the Texans’ front office as possible). Both would be very costly, and both seem like more of a pipe dream anyway, especially Wilson, who I still don’t think will be traded.
The most realistic trade candidate would be a young-ish quarterback like Marcus Mariota (makes a lot of sense), Sam Darnold (the Jets would definitely listen to any offers), Teddy Bridgewater (same for the Panthers), or Jimmy Garoppolo (less so for the 49ers).
Most of the veterans on the free agent market are just different versions of Nick Foles, the only quarterback currently under contract with the Bears: former starters in their 30s who could jump into the lineup at any time, but are best utilized as backups. That includes Tyrod Taylor, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Alex Smith, and Andy Dalton. If we assume the Saints retain Jameis Winston, then the remaining option that could work is Jacoby Brissett. At 28, he’s still relatively young and perhaps salvageable as a starting quarterback. He wouldn’t exactly be an inspiring choice, however.
If the Bears can’t land a quarterback they want via trade or free agency, then they’ll have to look ahead to the draft and start planning for how they can trade up to pick another quarterback, four years after passing up Watson and Patrick Mahomes for Trubisky.
2. How busy will the trade market be?
The offseason trade market was active early on, when the Rams swapped Jared Goff for Matthew Stafford, and the Eagles sent Carson Wentz off to Indianapolis. Since then, things have been … less exciting. Unless you’re really pumped about the Texans makingnon-Deshaun Watson trades, that is.
Even if NFL teams decide to wait closer to the draft to deal any other quarterbacks, there are plenty of other players who could be available for trade. Will Orlando Brown Jr. leave Baltimore for a team that is willing to use him as a left tackle? Will Bill Belichick somehow come out ahead, like always, in a trade that involves Stephon Gilmore or N’Keal Harry? Will the Eagles find a team willing to take on Zach Ertz before they have to release him? We might get answers to all of those questions soon.
3. How many one-year deals will we see?
Teams have already been proactive, whether through surprise cuts or contract restructuring, to deal with the effects of a pandemic-wrecked salary cap. Even though front offices have been creative with how they pay out the money of other multi-year deals (like Dak Prescott’s), we should still expect them to hand out more one-year deals than we’re used to seeing:
The wide receiver market in particular is ripe for this to occur. Young guys like Curtis Samuel and Will Fuller have dazzled at times, but they’ve also been inconsistent. Free agents like John Brown, T.Y. Hilton, and Sammy Watkins have all had injury setbacks in recent seasons and might have been looking at “prove it” deals anyway. Now, they can prove it, maybe with a contender, and try to cash in even more next year.
4. Which tight end will get the bigger contract: Hunter Henry or Jonnu Smith?
Henry is 26 and has been the more productive player so far. Smith, who is 25 and coming off his best season yet, might have the higher upside. Either way, these are the two most coveted tight end free agents this year. Even with a reduced salary cap, both should earn a sizable paycheck this week. They won’t approach what George Kittle and Travis Kelce make (nor should they at this point), but I think their average annual salary will rank them right below both players and above Austin Hooper ($10.5 million average/year).
— SH
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