Prior to the Saints Divisional Round matchup with the Bucs, it was reported that Drew Brees would call it a career whenever New Orleans’ season ended. That, of course, would be that night, and while it has taken two months for him to make it official, Jay Glazer’s initial report was indeed correct as the future Hall of Famer announced his retirement on Instagram on Sunday afternoon, with some help from his kids.
That, officially, meant the Saints were in need of a new quarterback, and it remains to be seen if they believe they have that player already on the roster in 2020, either in Jameis Winston or Taysom Hill, or if they’ll go searching for a bigger name on the market. The latter of those two quickly found himself in the spotlight on Sunday, when Adam Schefter reported he’d inked a 4-year, $140 million deal with the Saints in a restructuring of his contract. The big catch is that it is a completely voidable deal and, because the NFL’s salary cap is one of the weirdest things in the world, it will save New Orleans some serious money for this coming year.
Saints are restructuring QB Taysom Hill’s contract to create cap room. Details are great: it’s a 4-year, $140 million contract extension – but all years are voidable and it’s a mechanism to free up cap space this year, per source. It saves Saints over $7.5M against cap this year.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 14, 2021
Taysom Hill’s contract numbers this year include a $9.686 million signing bonus, a $1.439 million guaranteed roster bonus and a $1.034 million guaranteed base salary, plus incentives, per source. https://t.co/Ooy7akgPlv
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 14, 2021
The Saints’ “cap hell” was a running joke coming into this season, but with Brees gone and Hill restructuring, they are once again proving that cap hell is a myth in the NFL and you can always work your way out of it. The question now is whether they can finesse their way into one of the stars currently on the market — Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson — or if it’s Winston that gets the call to work on a new deal and take the reins for the squad after serving as the backup for a year.
