Taysom Hill is the favorite against Jameis Winston

The biggest double-take contract numbers at the gates of NFL free agency weren’t hard to come by Sunday, with the New Orleans Saints signing quarterback Taysom Hill to a garish contract extension – but canceled entirely – four years, $ 140 million. The key words of this sentence: Complete cancellation.

In most cases of contracts with the NFL, this phrase translates into numbers as “completely meaningless.” In terms of what the extension entails, this is not one of those cases.

There are several important signals from the Hill Extension.

What’s real about Taysom Hill’s $ 140 million expansion?

First, the numbers: the entire $ 140 million extension is not an actual number. It’s a mechanism used to stretch Hill’s current salary cap and reduce what he’s counting this year. If you’ve been paying attention last week in the NFL, you’re familiar with teams that make new deals with players and use voidable years to move their money further into the future when there’s more cap space. available, a maneuver that became necessary this year, when the 2021 salary cap fell to $ 182.5 million due to a shortfall from the pandemic. All you need to know about Hill’s deal is that the extra years are canceled at the end of the 2021 season, meaning he’s officially on a one-year contract.

The math: Hill had a cap load of $ 16.159 million which is now reduced to $ 8.41 million, saving the Saints $ 7.749 million on this season’s cap. Those savings mean a cap of $ 7.749 million that doesn’t count this year will be pushed back to 2022 – unless Hill signs a new extension.

All of this is important for two reasons. First, Hill is still counting heavily against the cap, even though it’s spread over two years, which should indicate that the Saints still view him as their potential starting quarterback for 2021 and beyond. And secondly, the fact that he will count against next season’s cap, whether he’s on the squad or not, should indicate some motivation from the Saints to start working on an extension during the season. 2021 if he starts at quarterback. and play well.

The story continues

Is Jameis Winston still a postman in New Orleans?

Hill not only appears to be in the running to take over from retiring Drew Brees next season, but his money and contract structure already suggest he is the frontrunner for the job, especially given that Team n has yet to sign Jameis again. Winston. This does not mean that Winston will not be part of a second round for the Saints in 2021. It just indicates that New Orleans wants Hill to be part of this derby and his remaining load already places him in a Level “of. departure”.

As for Winston taking that image into account, a source close to the quarterback told Yahoo Sports on Sunday night that he wanted to stay in New Orleans and saw the Saints and head coach Sean Payton as his ideal situation for earn a starting job, let alone a long term deal. Whether that happens will ultimately depend on whether another team unexpectedly offers Winston a starting position in 2021, which seems highly unlikely. The most likely scenario is for Winston to strike a deal paying him a low base salary with strong incentives to increase his income if he wins the starting job with a prolific season. The catch is, Winston could be offered the same kind of deal elsewhere, even if he wouldn’t have a year of familiarity he already has in New Orleans.

Don’t expect Russell Wilson or Deshaun Watson to become candidates

In summary, New Orleans seems to be going straight to the point where we all suspected it should Brees retire: with a quarterback competition between Hill and Winston, but with Hill being the initial favorite just from the salary implications of 2021. In an ideal situation, the Saints would see one of these players prove themselves worthy of a long-term extension, which would be triggered at the end of the 2021 season, with the Saints able to use the franchise tag to lock down Hill. or Winston if such an extension cannot be reached.

Lost in all of this is the evaporation of the “fantasy” scenario that was never going to happen, which would have seen the Saints trade for Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks or Deshaun Watson of the Houston Texans. Not only would the Saints have had to essentially clear their roster or significantly hammer down future years for such a signing to happen, but the franchise would also have had to give up considerable assets that would have included some essential elements of the current roster.

Hill’s hat-linked expansion suddenly kills what’s going on, which is one more signal sent by a ghost expansion that made a lot of noise but actually only whispered the same quarterback scenario as we had been waiting from the start.

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