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Matthew Stafford won’t play for the Detroit Lions in 2021. He and the Lions have agreed to part ways in a trade, and oddsmakers are already hard at work in guessing where he may land, though the New Orleans Saints are far from favored (they aren’t even in the top 10). Still, could he be the next quarterback Sean Payton looks to work with once Drew Brees entered retirement?
If he’s available, the Saints have to at least call about what it would take to move him. Taysom Hill didn’t show the Saints enough in his four starts last season to trust the franchise with, committing a dozen turnovers (10 fumbles, 2 interceptions) and taking 14 sacks on just 135 dropbacks. And Stafford is the kind of quarterback the Saints might hope Jameis Winston becomes some day. He’s miles ahead of either of the backups in New Orleans right now, and he’s made throws that Saints fans haven’t seen from their quarterbacks in years. His injury history needs vetting, but he turns 33 on Feb. 7 and could play for most of the next decade if things shake out the right way.
The salary cap hits are affordable. Stafford carries numbers of just $20 million in 2021 and $23 million in 2022. New Orleans could lower those figures if needed through one of their most frequent tricks: converting base salary into a signing bonus and adding automatically-voided future years onto the contract to prorate the resulting payouts. From the perspective of salary cap accounting, this is a better fit than, say, Deshaun Watson or Aaron Rodgers. It’s easier to work with given their cap situation than those larger deals.
But what could a trade package entail? It’s going to start with a first-round draft pick, but there are teams ranked above the Saints in priority who can offer more-valuable selections, meaning New Orleans would have to pile up assets to outweigh other options. And they aren’t lacking for competitors if this is a path they want to take.
“The Lions, of course, began immediately fielding calls from teams interested,” reported NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. “From what I understand, about a third of the league, almost a third of the league, has called the Lions. Significant interest in Matthew Stafford.”
One option to consider is whether including a player might sway Detroit’s decision. The Lions hired Saints secondary coach Aaron Glenn as their defensive coordinator on Campbell’s staff, and it’s possible they could include a cornerback in the deal to help install Glenn’s defense and give a proven quantity rather than a mystery box to open on draft day. In the most uncertain draft year ever due to health and safety restrictions, that could be valuable.
So there’s a couple of different directions to take that. Patrick Robinson was buried on the Saints depth chart for much of the year but played well when called upon (though late-season injuries limited how often he could help). He’s a likely salary cap candidate with his release yielding $2.6 million in savings, and probably not as enticing as younger or more prominent players.
Janoris Jenkins could be a possibility but he’s just one year younger, and also has an injury history. His contract will change one way or another (cutting him frees up $7 million, but he’s played well enough to stick around at a lower rate). What about Marshon Lattimore, the team’s other starting corner?
Glenn was Lattimore’s first position coach in the NFL, and no one knows his strengths and weaknesses better. He’s someone the Lions could trust to hold down one spot while Glenn and his assistants focus on coaching up Jeff Okudah and other cornerbacks. Lattimore is also entering the final year of his contract, forcing the Saints into making a very tough decision: whether to sign him to a long-term extension (lowering his $10.244 million 2021 cap hit) or to trade him and reboot that roster spot.
It’s a tough call to make, and worth considering on its own merits. Lattimore has been such a high-variance talent, alternately erasing Mike Evans one week and getting dusted by Allen Lazard the next. When he’s dialed in and focused and healthy (his college hamstring issues have lingered into the NFL), there aren’t many better corners than him. And he’s a great tackler in the open field, doing a lot to boost the Saints run defense. His next contract should reel in at least $17 million annually given how the market is rising. Will the Saints sign him to that, though?
That’s a decision the Saints have to reach sooner rather than later. If they aren’t willing to pay him that highly, they should consider trading him and recouping what they can now. And that might mean including him in a package for Stafford.
And if that’s the case, Lattimore should be more valuable than the picks most teams can offer, even first rounders. So maybe the Saints can trade Lattimore and a second-round pick for Stafford and move on to the next era. That’s comparable to the package that got Alex Smith moved from Kansas City to Washington (who swapped cornerback Kendall Fuller and a third-round pick for the veteran quarterback; Fuller later signed a contract averaging $10 million per year). Stafford is a better quarterback than Smith was at the time, and the compensation reflects that. It’s tough to see the Saints giving up both Lattimore and a first-round pick they may hope to use to replace him.
Alternately, what about a package of their 2021 first-round pick, a third rounder in 2022, and Robinson as a corner who Glenn knows can start in their rebuilding defense? The draft capital is more valuable, but that offsets the loss of a player the Saints may cut anyway.
So are those deals you’d sign off on? Would the Lions even entertain them? We shouldn’t expect any sort of friendly discount between Campbell and Payton, given neither of them are probably going to be involved with trade conversations anyway (that’s between Mickey Loomis and first-year Lions general manager Brad Holmes).
It would leave the Saints with a big hole to fill on defense but a clear vision of where the offense is headed in life after Brees. If nothing else, it’s something worth considering during a brief lull in what should be an exciting Saints offseason.
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