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Things aren’t adding up whenever Sean Payton has had to discuss the New Orleans Saints depth chart at quarterback. Trevor Siemian has started a series of games in relief of the injured Jameis Winston, with Taysom Hill activated for game days while rookie draft pick Ian Book was a healthy scratch. It made sense to stick with Siemian once Hill missed time with a concussion and foot injury, but he’s remained sidelined after fully participating in practice (per the official, NFL-required injury report) and Book has remained in sweatpants.
Hill started four games last season and pushed Winston for the starting gig all summer, so the expectation was that Hill would start once Winston’s season ended. That’s what Saints quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry told the Athletic’s Katherine Terrell earlier in November, saying: “We knew that we needed a veteran QB that could go in, get us out of a game, and the following week would probably be Taysom’s show. That was the plan coming in.”
But that plan hasn’t been executed. Now that the Saints have hit a wall after injuries decimated the roster. They’ve squandered a 5-2 start and are struggling to keep afloat at 5-6 with another prime-time game against a playoff contender coming up next. Siemian has gotten worse each week and the whole world knows now that he isn’t a threat to any defense with his current supporting cast. And Payton hasn’t done anything to satisfactorily explain why Hill has remained sidelined, leaning on the vague foot injury that hasn’t been reflected on the injury report.
“We felt Taysom could definitely be the backup if we needed him to be, and we feel strongly about how Ian is doing. But obviously Taysom is further along than that, and that was an easy decision,” Payton said to Terrell after the Saints ruined Thanksgiving for a lot of fans in their 31-6 loss last Thursday. Most teams would consider a quarterback change after that performance (if not at some point during it), but Payton has continued to shy away from putting Hill back under center, claiming Hill’s foot injury has limited him too much in practice to be the starter.
Payton suggesting Hill is healthy enough to be the backup in a game — where, hypothetically, Siemian could be injured on the first snap and force Hill into playing a full game — but he’s not healthy enough to start or play in any other role is bunk. It doesn’t check out. If Hill is well enough to be the only other active quarterback on game days, with Book inactive, then the Saints are explicitly acknowledging that Hill is healthy enough to play. If that weren’t the case then Book would have his helmet on, and the Saints shouldn’t be listing Hill as a full participant in practice every day.
So there’s little reason Hill shouldn’t be ready to replace Siemian in the starting lineup. There’s no way Hill could be worse; he could go out there on a bum foot and throw five interceptions and achieve the same result Siemian did last week. At least it might be more entertaining. But Payton isn’t only doubling down on his contradictory stance. He’s also playing games with the media in his NFL-required conference calls:
“This is gonna be one of those weeks where I know (the media) doing your job are gonna want to discuss the injuries and who’s healthy and you’re gonna want to discuss the quarterback,” Payton told ESPN’s Mike Triplett, adding, “And quite honestly and respectfully I’m not gonna discuss any of it.”
It make sense that Payton is frustrated. He’s lost four games in a row and just took the worst loss his team has seen in years — in front of a national audience, very likely dooming their season. His offense looks more inept than it ever has in his tenure, with years of neglectful drafting catching up to them and leaving little to work with once stars like Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas became unavailable.
But this is an act that wears thin awful quick. If the Saints were winning games and Payton wanted withhold specifics on injuries and his depth chart structure as a competitive advantage, fine. That’s easy to laugh off when the team is successful and on top of their division four years in a row. However, that’s tough to accept from someone whose team is in shambles and who begins every post-loss press conference with some cliched line about accountability and that “it needs to start with me.” That smacks of the talk that filled all those 7-9 seasons Payton put together in the not-too-distant past.
When Payton treats this aspect of his job and the reporters doing their jobs so blithely, he’s exposing how empty those words are and how little accountability he’s actually taking on. If he’s not going to give a serious answer about his decision to not make a change at quarterback or even entertain the prospect of it, then what are we here for?
And the optics on that decision are terrible given the whopping $40 million contract extension the Saints inexplicably signed with Hill last week. Maybe it was intended as an olive branch between Payton and his favorite player, who suffered a career-threatening concussion earlier this season while running a route instead of playing under center. Either way it was the kind of move that could have waited until the offseason, when the free agent market could have proven how badly the Saints overvalue Hill compared to the rest of the NFL. With every snap Hill watches from the sidelines under this new big-money deal, it’s only going to become more clear that Payton’s fascination with the player is greater in theory than in application.
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