There’s a number of tough decisions ahead for the New Orleans Saints in free agency, but they’ve done a good job retaining players in the past and should have an opportunity to add new talent on the open market. Their busy activity last summer took many of their most high-profile 2024 free agents off the board — guys like Carl Granderson, Cameron Jordan, and Cesar Ruiz, among others.
Which brings us to those still up in the air. We’ll start with quarterback Jameis Winston. Techniclaly speaking, he isn’t a free agent. But the Saints paid him a $100,000 bonus before the 2023 season ended to move the expiration date back on his contract, which makes it easier for them to release him, at least as far as the salary cap is concerned.
As reported by NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill, the Saints must choose whether to release Winston or extend his contract by March 16 or pay him a staggering $107,255,000. That isn’t a check they’re going to write, so a decision is coming. Let’s recap Winston’s time with the Saints thus far and decide whether or not he should stick with New Orleans:
Career stats
Winston was demoted to a backup role last season (where he only dropped back to pass 49 times) so we’ll be looking at his four-year Saints career in evaluating him. He cooled down quickly after some early success as the starter under Sean Payton back in 2021, where he threw 14 of his 20 touchdown passes in a Saints uniform. But Winston couldn’t sustain that success and a series of brutal injuries prompted head coach Dennis Allen to spearhead the recruiting campaign for Derek Carr.
In total, Winston has completed 200 of his 334 pass attempts (59.9%) for New Orleans, gaining 2,367 yards at an average depth of target at 10.4 yards. He’s scored 20 touchdown passes and converted 106 first downs for a success rate of 42.5%. He’s also taken 26 sacks (7.2% sack rate) and thrown 11 interceptions while fumbling 5 times. He did score a rushing touchdown and ran for 17 first downs in 2021 but hasn’t made many plays with his legs since.
Snap counts
As we said earlier, Winston was benched after returning from his injury in 2022 and remained a backup in 2023 behind Derek Carr. He still got into seven games last season, either as an injury replacement or mop-up quarterback with the second-string offense, but he only played extensively in two of those matchups with 23 snaps against the Green Bay Packers in Week 3 and 33 snaps versus the Minnesota Vikings in Week 10. Winston has totaled 76, 196, 371, and 55 snaps in each of his four years with New Orleans. This isn’t as big a point of emphasis for him as it is other pending free agents we’ll be discussing.
2023 season review
It’s impossible to talk about Winston’s 2023 season without touching on how it ended. And let’s be clear: the decision to get Jamaal Williams a rushing touchdown in the season’s final seconds was not Winston’s alone to make. Everyone in the huddle at the time including Pro Bowl center Erik McCoy and the rest of the starting offensive line wanted to see Williams into the end zone before the year ended.
But that insubordination upset Dennis Allen, and it’s very difficult to see him letting it slide when it’s time to decide whether to bring Winston back in 2024.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way: Winston’s performance coming in off the bench the rest of the year was as high-variance as it gets. He threw more interceptions (3) than touchdowns (2) and posted the lowest success rate (32.7%) of his career. Poor pass protection hurt him just like it did Derek Carr, but his bad habit of putting the ball in harm’s way in hopes of making a big play came back to bite him.
Future value to Saints
This is a thorny issue. On the one hand, Winston is more experienced and better qualified than many other quarterbacks on the market to back up Carr. He has years of reps in the system, he’s popular in the locker room, and when he’s on he can make any throw you can ask of him. He only recently turned 30 and should continue to be a positive asset for a long time.
Now, on the other hand, there’s a clear disconnect between Winston and Dennis Allen. And it’s on Allen to bridge that gap. That’s why he’s the head coach, that’s why he’s so highly paid, and that’s why he was picked to lead this team. If Allen isn’t willing to sort things out with Winston and doesn’t trust him to lead the offense in Carr’s place when called upon, we should expect the team to make a change. They may not regard Winston as highly as other options.
Stay or go?
We’re expecting Winston to leave this spring. The Saints reworked his contract to facilitate a release in March with a post-June 1 designation, meaning they’ll carry his $4.5 million salary cap hit on the books through the summer. Then, in June, they’ll get back to $1.21 million in savings and defer the $7.3 million in dead money remaining to 2025, leaving a dead money cap hit of $3.3 million behind in 2024.
If this is the course the Saints take — and they’ve set things up to follow through on it — then we should anticipate another quarterback to join the room this offseason, likely a veteran on the minimum salary to compete with Jake Haener for the backup gig behind Derek Carr. Some names to watch include Sam Darnold, Trevor Siemian, Brett Rypien, and Kellen Mond.
