Tag: 2023 free agents

Andy Dalton will start Saints’ regular season finale vs. Panthers

Andy Dalton will start the Saints’ regular season finale with the Panthers. The move may signal the end of Jameis Winston’s time in New Orleans:

Well that’s something. New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen announced Monday that he’ll stick with Andy Dalton at quarterback in Week 18’s regular season finale with the Carolina Panthers. Both the Saints and the Panthers have been eliminated from playoff contention, which makes it a bit of a curious move. So-called meaningless games like this are often opportunities to evaluate players with the future in mind.

So it says a lot that Jameis Winston will remain sidelined for the last Saints game of the season. The move suggests Allen and the Saints have already seen everything they need to see from the veteran quarterback, between his 70-plus starts with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and his three years in the facility with New Orleans.

Winston is the only Saints quarterback under contract for 2023, but it appears the team is readying to move on from him. It’s a shame that things haven’t worked out for him after he came to New Orleans looking to turn his career around, but injuries and subpar play led to coaching decisions that favored other options.

So what are their options? Winston currently has a $15.6 million salary cap hit for 2023, but releasing or trading him prior to June 1 would save the team $4.4 million against the cap. If they released him early with a post-June 1 designation they’d nearly triple their savings (up to $12.8 million) but none of it would free up until after that date, at which point it could be used to sign the rookie draft class or go towards midsummer free agent pickups. The Saints are over the projected 2023 salary cap by more than $50 million right now, so they may opt to make it a clean cut. Either way Winston gets into the free agency market at the same time as everyone else.

Or maybe we’re wrong, and the team intends to bring Winston back for the 2023 season. That’s kind of hard to believe after seeing how quickly Allen set him aside in 2022, followed by the decision to stick with Dalton for most of the season. Either way, it sure looks like the Saints will be in the market for a quarterback. They’ll have options in free agency and in the 2023 NFL draft, and it’s possible some trade candidates emerge around the league. We’ll just have to wait and see how the situation develops.

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Juwan Johnson, Kaden Elliss lead Saints’ top-7 2023 free agents to re-sign

Juwan Johnson, Kaden Elliss headline the list of the Saints’ top 2023 free agents to re-sign:

It might not feel like it, but we’re already in the middle of the New Orleans Saints’ rebuild. The high-end rosters that defined Drew Brees’ final years with the team have gotten older and lost key players in each phase of the game: offense, defense, and special teams. To be frank, the Saints haven’t played enough competitive football over the last two seasons to look at them in the same light as the squads that preceded them.

With the 2023 offseason around the corner, it’s important the Saints take a hard look at the shape of their roster and consider which free agents to prioritize in the spring. There are many players they should bring back, but some in-house free agents should take priority. Here are seven on top of our list:

Jimmy Garoppolo’s big throws under pressure made a compelling audition for the Saints come 2023

The Saints will be in the market for a QB next year, and Jimmy Garoppolo’s big throws under pressure made for a compelling audition come 2023 free agency:

There’s no question that the New Orleans Saints will be looking for a quarterback in 2023. Andy Dalton hasn’t inspired anyone as a one-year rental after taking over for Jameis Winston, whose future with the team is in doubt. Winston has missed extensive time with injuries in each of his two years as the starter and he’s still on the bench. He’s also their only quarterback under contract for 2023, but the Saints can save $4 million by releasing him, and it certainly feels like that’s the way things are headed.

Jimmy Garoppolo gave them a firsthand look at an alternative in Sunday’s win, with the San Francisco 49ers quarterback completing a cool 70.3% of his passes without turning the ball over. And he often made plays under pressure. The Saints pass rush did its job and beat the 49ers blockers to hit and harry Garoppolo throughout the afternoon, and he made plays anyway. NFL Next Gen Stats tracking found that he was one of the most aggressive passers in Week 12, crediting him with his highest completion percentage above expectation (CPAE) score of the year at +4.6%. That metric factors in throws made under pressure and tight coverage by the defense, and it illustrates just how effective Garoppolo was on Sunday.

And he’s probably going to be the best available quarterback in 2023 free agency; Tom Brady is likelier to retire (for real this time) than start over somewhere else, and it would be stunning to see the Baltimore Ravens not work things out with Lamar Jackson (even if they need to use the franchise tag). Other veterans like Geno Smith, Taylor Heinicke, and Teddy Bridgewater probably stay with their teams, too.

That’s not to say Garoppolo is an elite passer who could fix all of the Saints’ problems. We’ve seen him at his lowest in the NFL, too. But he brings more credibility than other quarterbacks who could reach free agency like Sam Darnold, Drew Lock, Gardner Minshew, and Baker Mayfield. And he would be an upgrade over the passers New Orleans already has; Dalton has never won a playoff game as a starting quarterback, and Winston has never even gotten a team into the postseason. Garoppolo has gone 4-2 in the playoffs.

But, again, he isn’t perfect. The 49ers didn’t invest a ton of time and resources into getting his replacement for no reason, and Trey Lance should be the uncontested starter next year once Garoppolo leaves town. We’ve seen Garoppolo’s limitations lose games and even a Super Bowl. Navigating the salary cap to go get him wouldn’t make the Saints relevant again on its own.

It would be a nice start, though. Getting a veteran quarterback with a resume who isn’t a social media laughingstock like Dalton or Winston would at least show fans the Saints are taking this seriously. That trust was eroded quickly when Sean Payton quit on the team and lobbied for Dennis Allen as his successor on his way out the door. Whether Allen returns in 2023 or not, New Orleans can at least take a step in the right direction and go sign a proven quarterback who can get the ball to his playmakers. That would be a step up from where things are right now.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The Saints still have five games left to play. Maybe Dalton suddenly turns it around or Winston gets back into the starting lineup and sparks a comeback. Maybe the run the table and get into the playoffs. Anything can happen, right?

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Juwan Johnson is making the most of his opportunities in Year 3 with the Saints

Juwan Johnson is making the most of his opportunities. 25 of his 36 career receptions have converted a first down, and he just caught 2 TD’s against the Cardinals:

Here’s something for New Orleans Saints fans to cheer about. Juwan Johnson has put in a ton of work over the years, and he’s beginning to reap the rewards. After signing with the Saints as an undrafted wide receiver out of Oregon back in 2020, Johnson converted to tight end, packed on 15 pounds of muscle, and is still running with the kick return units on special teams. He’s done a lot to help the team however he can, and now he’s consistently flashing big-play ability whenever the ball goes his way.

And he’s playing often. Johnson has logged more snaps on offense than any other tight end, wide receiver, quarterback, or running back; only starting linemen Ryan Ramczyk, Cesar Ruiz, Erik McCoy, and James Hurst (479 snaps each) have been on the field more often than Johnson (327). He’s averaging a modest 2.7 receptions and 28.9 receiving yards per game this season, but 10 of Johnson’s 19 catches have converted a first down. He’s already caught more passes and gained more yards (202) than in his first two seasons combined. The 63.3% catch rate he’s posted this year is the highest of his career.

It’s a small sample size, but you can see why the coaches are still giving him opportunities. Johnson has picked up a first down on 25 of his 36 career receptions since his 2020 rookie season, securing 6 touchdown passes along the way. His willingness to switch positions in the NFL and help out on special teams has done a lot to earn goodwill from New Orleans’ decision-makers. He’s done everything asked of him.

So is Johnson the Saints’ new TE1? Maybe. Adam Trautman’s injury muddies the picture and helps widen the gap between them if you’re just looking at total snap counts, and we’d have to parse it out further between various game situations — they use different personnel when trailing, leading, or playing with a tied score. But as far as game-by-game workloads go, here is how their assignments compared up until Trautman’s Week 6 injury:

Johnson outsnapped Trautman in each of their first three weeks, though it was close in Week 3; and Trautman took the lead in Weeks 4 and 5, but his Week 6 injury makes it a tossup. Trautman was a key player in the Taysom Hill package as an inline blocker who could execute several different assignments, and we haven’t seen Hill used as heavily in that role the last two weeks with Trautman unavailable. Right now, the Saints seem to have divided their roles pretty clearly between Johnson as a pass-catching option and Trautman as primarily a blocker. There’s some overlap, but not much, and the divide is tougher to clarify without Trautman in the lineup.

At the end of the day, pecking-order designations like TE1 or TE2 don’t really matter. So long as Johnson is executing his assignments and reaping the rewards of his work, he and his coaches and Saints fans shouldn’t be concerned about it. He’s one of a few intriguing players who will be restricted free agents in 2023, and more positive plays from Johnson will go a long way towards earning his first big NFL payday. Hopefully it happens with New Orleans.

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Jarvis Landry is a better fit with the Saints than we could have imagined

Jarvis Landry is a better fit with the Saints than we could imagine. Free agency’s biggest bargain looked like a new man in his first game with his hometown team:

We probably need to get used to the idea of Jarvis Landry being a one-year rental with the New Orleans Saints, but what an experience this is turning out to be. If Landry can keep up the pace he established on Sunday, he’ll end up playing his way into the sort of contract offers New Orleans won’t be able to match. That was likely his plan all along in signing a relatively-small one-year, $6 million deal, but it eventually opens the door for Chris Olave to step into a larger role in his second year with the Saints.

But we’re getting way, way ahead of ourselves here. So let’s take a minute to reflect on just how impressive Landry played in his first game with his hometown team. The veteran slot receiver led the team in both receptions (7), receiving yards (114), and first down conversions (4), looking like someone who’s been catching passes from Jameis Winston for five or six years now. His 40-yard grab down the sideline inside the game’s final minute set up a penultimate field goal try for Wil Lutz to seal the win.

And nobody saw this coming. All summer the thought in football circles had been that Olave would be the one feasting against outmatched opponents deep downfield, with Landry and Michael Thomas doing their damage at the short and intermediate ranges. Instead, Landry took advantage of all the attention going their way to bully one-on-one matchups way downfield; his 31-yard grab early in the fourth quarter set up Thomas for a goal-line touchdown reception, effectively sparking the comeback in the first place.

To illustrate how out-of-nowhere this is, let’s look at the Targeted Air Yards metric from NFL Next Gen Stats, which gives us an idea of how receivers are utilized at different depths of the field. Landry averaged 8.8 targeted air yards in 2020 and 8.2 in 2021, his last two years with the Cleveland Browns. But he clocked 13.9 targeted air yards in Sunday’s win against Atlanta, showing us a marked difference.

It’ll be hard for him to sustain this level of play as Thomas continues to heal up and Olave begins to assert himself in the offense, to say nothing of the adjustments opposing defenses will make moving forward, but Landry could very easily reach some significant milestones if his rapport with Winston is as strong as it appears.

He’s exactly what the team needed with so much uncertainty surrounding Thomas and predictable hurdles ahead for Olave in his rookie year. And the Saints were able to sign Landry at a major discount. If he continues to perform as expected, he’ll hit free agency in the spring and earn contract offers as rich as anyone else has seen on the market. So good for him. But that’s something to worry about on another day. For now, let’s just look forward to what he’ll do next in a Saints uniform.

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38 Saints players currently slated for free agency in 2023

38 Saints players are currently slated for free agency in 2023, ranging from Marcus Davenport and David Onyemata to Marquez Callaway and Tony Jones Jr.:

Few teams stay busy like the New Orleans Saints. Their unorthodox salary cap maneuvering means every move is part of a larger plan, with possible ramifications accounted for months and years down the road. And with 38 of the 90 players currently under contract headed for free agency after the 2022 season, via Over The Cap, it’s good to keep tabs on who may not be long for New Orleans.

Let’s remember that there are a couple of different free agent designations. The vast majority of players (including 28 of the Saints’ 38 pending free agents) will be unrestricted free agents at the start of the new league year. Those with three seasons’ worth of experience will be restricted free agents (including Saints players like wide receiver Marquez Callaway and punter Blake Gillikin), which gets a little complicated but typically means New Orleans will have the opportunity to match any offers from other teams. And those with two years or fewer behind them (like offensive lineman Calvin Throckmorton and running back Tony Jones Jr.) will be considered exclusive rights free agents, who the Saints can retain at non-compete minimum salaries.

Additionally, three players — defensive linemen Marcus Davenport, David Onyemata, and Tanoh Kpassagnon — are on track to see the void years written in through contract restructures expire in the spring. That will make them unrestricted free agents, unless the team signs them to extensions beforehand. And because the Saints restructured those deals they would leave behind a whopping total of $19.6 million for Onyemata ($10.1 million), Davenport ($7.6 million), and Kpassagnon ($1.9 million) in dead money that was previously moved around. So we should expect at least one or two of them to re-up with New Orleans before next March, which would help keep good players in the lineup and blunt any salary cap damage.

So with all of that said: here are the 38 Saints players who are on track to be pending free agents once the 2022 season is in the books.