New Orleans Saints: Three biggest questions heading into the offseason
By Jason Reed
1. What is going to happen with the quarterback situation?
There are a lot of questions that have to be answered about the quarterback position heading into this offseason. The Saints are in a unique situation where all three quarterbacks are impactful on the team, thus making this a bigger deal than it would be otherwise.
All three quarterbacks — Drew Brees, Teddy Bridgewater and Taysom Hill — are free agents this offseason. Brees and Bridgewater are both unrestricted free agents while Hill is a restricted free agent, meaning the team can either use a draft pick tender on him or match a deal that he signs with another team.
However, it is very hard to see Hill leaving. He still would not be a traditional starting quarterback on any team and he knows what his best role is on the team and no team can utilize him the way Sean Payton does. I would give Hill a 0.1% chance of leaving the Saints this offseason.
Brees is in the same boat. While retirement is a legitimate conversation, the competitor in Brees will not let him hang it up after a year in which he was injured and the team fell short. He still has some left in the tank.
Bridgewater is the biggest x-factor. Bridgewater is going to get decent offers from other teams and will likely get starting opportunities outside of New Orleans. That means the Saints would likely have to really wow Bridgewater with a big contract but that is going to be harder to do with other offers on the table.
As good as Bridgewater did, the Saints cannot afford to pay him starting quarterback money with other areas of the team that need to be addressed. However, they also cannot have Hill be the only backup because then you have to take him out of his unique role to risk injuring him and Brees and end up without a quarterback.
They could sign a decent backup option to be the emergency option for Brees and that might be the route to take. However, what if Brees only has one more year left in the tank? Should the team then forego that free agent signing and draft a quarterback in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft?
It really is a tricky situation to navigate.