The New Orleans Saints have an exceptionally interesting offseason coming up, with quite a few free agents hitting the market from their 2024 roster and minimal cap space at the moment to work with. Granted, there are very few free agents who are key contributors to the team, as many have been locked up previously by the front office, but there are a select few who have had large roles in recent years.
One such player is cornerback Paulson Adebo, who is set to hit the open market after his rookie deal expired. After a major leg injury during the 2024 season, he is one of the more interesting free agents from the Saints to look at. So without further ado, let’s take a look at his career so far:
Career Stats
Paulson Adebo has always been pretty strong in the statistics department, as he is the true definition of a ball-hawk cornerback. While he struggles immensely with penalties, the positives typically outweigh the negatives in his game. In his rookie year he accrued 3 interceptions and 8 pass deflections with 66 total tackles and 6 tackles for loss, however he allowed a 61.8% completion rate on passes where he was targeted. This only got worse in 2022 where he had no interceptions, 7 pass deflections, 60 total tackles and 2 tackles for loss (albeit in 13 games compared to 17), allowing a 65.8% completion rate and giving up 6 touchdowns.
2023 and 2024 are where Adebo really deserves credit, as in those two seasons he has been much stronger than the prior two. In 2023 he was targeted a whopping 100 times, and allowed 55 completions for 674 yards and 1 touchdown, as well as a 62.7 passer rating when targeted. He also had 4 interceptions, 18 pass deflections, 2 forced fumbles with recoveries, and 76 total tackles. Then in 2024 he continued to be productive, and despite a major injury knocking him out for 10 games, in the first 7 games he had 3 interceptions, 10 pass deflections, 52 total tackles, a tackle for loss, and a 60.0% completion percentage allowed with a 71.9 passer rating allowed.
Snap Counts
The Saints have had a very clear vision for Paulson Adebo since day one, as they started him off somewhat slow with 76% of snaps in his rookie year (850) and mixed him in with other corners. Then in the next three seasons, he had 94%, 99%, and 91% of snaps in games he played, which is immensely impressive despite injuries taking some games off the total snap counts overall. He has seen quite a significant amount of playing time in his four seasons, and despite his flaws, has been a quality corner when it matters most.
2024 season review
Unfortunately the 2024 season was cut short for Paulson Adebo after a broken femur in Week 7, and then surgery to repair it. However, in the first seven games he was having a solid start to the year, almost tying his interception from the entire 2023 season and only 8 pass deflections short as well. He tied the Saints 2024 team lead for interceptions with Tyrann Mathieu at three a piece, and was second in pass deflections on the year with 10 behind only Alontae Taylor who had 16.
Stay or go?
Adebo is a difficult one to predict on whether he will remain with the Saints or not, primarily due to the factor of money. He will likely want a pretty substantial contract that the Saints may not be able to offer unless it is on the longer end around 4 to 5 years. If you offer that long of a contract though, who knows how he is producing at 29 to 30 years old when he is having problems with penalties already. It’s a difficult call on whether or not to pay him, my belief is they should try to retain him for two years if at all possible and see if he is worth keeping beyond that, but the free agent market may make than an impossibility.
