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I think it's more likely than not myself - but the business behind it will be interesting. I can't see them franchising him, at the price that will be. If he wants to give a bit of a home town discount given the team they have around him, could be really, really dangerous. He needs a good 2nd receiving option and that offense would be crazy good.
First two rounds of next year's drafts are gonna be loaded. Large number of RBs likely going in the first (agree Ingram and Kamara are both deserving) which will push a lot of stud WRs to the second. Gonna be tough to not walk away from most drafts with two damn good players more often than not.
They can't franchise him, it's a provision of his contract. If he wants to go elsewhere there won't be anything they can do about it.
Thanks, I didn't know that. I thought I heard somewhere that they can keep him at around $30m or so next year (some ridiculous amount). I just assumed it was the franchise tag provision of being 110% of the year prior.
I see plenty of "media" that don't know that either. Although maybe they are saying at $30M there would be no team willing to pay that or much more, so why leave?
The Saints will have $18m of dead money on the books if he goes - but can alter that amount under a new couple year deal. If they're in win now mode, I have to think that's their plan.
Yeah, but all they are doing is kicking the can down the road. That $18M has to eventually get paid. And it's not like Brees is taking sweetheart deals at $14M a year so that they can dump $6M per year of the dead money to get caught up. Their best method would be to let the cap keep rising and "spending neutral" to that while dumping the dead money. That's most easily done with good draft picks. Dallas completely lucked out with Dak and EZE, they are paying those guys peanuts but getting premium performance out of them, so once it came time to pay the dead money bill, they were still "only" spending $20M at QB so didn't have to make deep cuts elsewhere. That's what the Saints are hoping for and getting some good results with - Michael Thomas, Kamara, and Lattimore are big starts to that along with Ingram's bargain contract. Premium production at bargain prices.
No way to tell. It's all about what Brees wants at this point because he has all the leverage. I'm sure he'll get the "no franchise tag" provision in every contract now, so it's all about how fun it is winning and healthy for him. If they were 3-7 I'd say he's a risk to go elsewhere but with their record he's probably pretty content there. They will pay him whatever he decides to ask for, that's clear now.
It's crazy that the Saints haven't been spending the last 3 years developing a solid young backup QB.
It's definitely not allowed to pay them outside the salary cap, donation or otherwise. But taking a hometown discount isn't unheard of. Brady did to an extent, so the Pats could build around him. He should be the highest paid QB in the league, but he doesn't need the money and cares more about winning.
LAR's first drive took a lot of time off of the clock. NO aired it out on their first drive, didn't run once. Then LAR drove down the field and kicked a FG. By the time any RB on NO touched the ball there was roughly 3 minutes left in the 1st.
Does look a bit effortless at times- he never looks like he is running at full speed.
Well played. 
