I currently have three “notable” Saints’ free agents that I feel are worth mentioning. As always, notable means players that I deem to be rosterable in Dynasty Owner leagues. I’m obviously not going to talk about defensive players as Dynasty Owner does not play IDP, and I won’t be talking about players like Michael Burton, Dwayne Washington or Bennie Fowler. These three, while offensive players, are not currently rostered in any DO league. The three I want to talk about are Jared Cook, Jameis Winston and Ty Montgomery.
Jared Cook is 33 years old. He is finishing a $7.5 million per year contract, and he finished the season as TE18. Fun Fact: there were only two tight ends with higher salaries that finished lower in the rankings than him. Can you name them? Cook had a lackluster season although he did end with seven touchdowns despite a disappointing 58.33 catch percentage in the red zone. I wouldn’t dare declare that Cook has nothing left. It’s expected he’ll return for the 2021 season, but according to ESPN’s Mike Triplett, it’s unlikely it’ll be with the Saints due to “cap restrictions.” I do agree.
Cook is going to demand roughly the same contract that is about to expire. (Think Jimmy Graham’s contract) This coupled with the fact that the Saints traded their 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th round 2020 draft picks to Minnesota in exchange for their 3rd round pick which they converted into Adam Trautman. I’m not going to break down Trautman in this article, but surely the Saints want to see him on the field at some point given the draft equity they invested in him. Expect Cook to move on.
Up next we have the possible starting quarterback for the 2021 Saints: Jameis Winston. Winston signed a single year contract worth $1,100,000 last year. According to a lot of analysts, this deal seemed to be much less than he actually deserved. I would have to agree given the fact that he had just come off of a 2019 season where he had career highs in attempts (626), completions (380), yards (5109) and touchdowns (33).
Unfortunately, he also had a career high in interceptions (30). Regardless, I believe that Jameis showed enough in 2019 to make him deserving of a contract closer to 10 or 12 million dollars per year. The rest of the NFL did not see it this way and he essentially signed a minimum contract with the Saints. Well, Jameis was unable to show much of anything during the 2020 season. Despite Drew Brees missing four weeks in the middle of the season, Jameis did not attempt a pass during those weeks. Instead, Taysom Hill received the starting quarterback job. In fact, Winston only completed seven passes for 75 yards in 2020. 63 of these yards came in the game where Brees was injured. Now for some speculation…
The expectation is that Brees will be retiring sometime this offseason. The fact that he agreed to cut his pay to the league minimum for the 2021 season paves the way for a retirement. This move drops New Orleans’ cap more than $20 million dollars. Jameis is too cheap not to hold until his contract situation is a little clearer. Hold with confidence, and I would even advocate trading for him if the price is right.
The final player worth mentioning is Ty Montgomery. I’m not going to talk much about him as he has yet to pass 121 touches in any season. In fact, he has averaged only 72 touches per season in his career. He is only owned in 8.25 percent of Dynasty Owner leagues so he’s a borderline player to even mention, but if he is signed by a team expect his salary to be between 2 and 3 million per year. Even though this is a cheap price to pay for a running back, I would still be staying away.
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