Drew Brees has given the New Orleans Saints a hard deadline regarding contract talks, saying that he won’t negotiate in season.
At this point, the amount of guaranteed money seems to be holding the process up.
“Two league sources pegged a Brees extension as landing somewhere in the neighborhood of four years and $95 million to $100 million, with guaranteed money likely to exceed $65 million,” per Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports. “For now, one league source said the asking price on the extension has played a part in the talks failing to progress.”
That is definitely a lot of guaranteed money for a team that currently ranks 30th in available cap space, coming in at just a shade over $2.5 million. The problem, of course, is that if the Saints want to take their chances and negotiate a new deal with Brees after 2016, he might have a huge season, which would only drive his cap number up.
It’s worth remembering that while Brees is 37, the last two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks were Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, who were 37 and 39 at the time of their victories. That knowledge will certainly increase the number of interested teams.
Robinson also noted that a risk with giving Brees that much guaranteed money is that he could have a year like Manning had in 2015. That kind of regression, mixed with the Saints already limited cap space, would almost certainly mean mediocre to terrible seasons in New Orleans for the foreseeable future.
That’s a genuine concern. But while Brees has had more bangs and bruises than Manning, he’s never had an injury as severe as Manning’s neck problems, which kept him out of the 2011 season and really limited his effectiveness in 2015.
Giving anyone that kind of guaranteed money is a risk. But Brees is the best player in franchise history by a mile. Additionally, he’s still an effective quarterback and the Saints don’t seem to have much of a Plan B. It’s a risk, but one worth taking.