Maybe they're hyping up Nicks value for a future potential trade?

Nicks has no value to the Saints as a trade, his one year contract has already expired. Right now he can take any deal he is offered, with any team, and the Saints can do nothing to prevent it except offer him more money.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but he can't negotiate with any other teams than the Saints until the FA period begins in March?

I just want to point out that anything a player says about his contract in the media is 100% directed by his agent and his lawyers, the player acts as a mouthpiece for his representatives. Granted, the player's interests guide (or should guide) the position of those people, but those words definitely aren't indicative of a player's full feelings on any situation.

I cant believe nobody else is mentioning the fact the original post said that Colston is nearly as productive as calvin johnson...are you serious? megatron had over 500 more yards and 11 more tds than Colston

Well it all depends on how you look at it - or better yet how you want to twist the stats around.

For example, from this chart of WRs compiled by the footballoutsiders.com you can see that their measured DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) is higher for Colston than for Johson: 35.4%>33.2%.

The higher DVOA value basically means a wide receiver with more value per play, and while they do measure Johnson as being the WR with the highest overall value (DYAR) out of the WRs in the NFL - that can be explained by Stafford targeting him 1/3 more than Brees targets Colston. And mind you Colston has a higher catch rate: 75%>61%.

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | 2011 WIDE RECEIVERS

So it's all in the eye of the beholder who is the more "productive" of the two. Johnson produced more yards than Colston, but Colston was able to give more production per each pass he was thrown than Megatron.

Colston may leave as a FA. We will see. Maybe they franchise tag him to keep him around.

They wouldn't use the franchise tag on him - on Brees or Nicks maybe, but I can't see them tagging Colston.

Dude, I love Colston too, but let's just be honest. Calvin Johnson is the best Wide Receiver in the NFL right now.

You misunderstood me - I'm not saying that Colston is better than Johnson or even that the Saints should make resigning him a priority.

I was only illustrating the point that you can make the argument that Colston is as or even more productive of a WR than Johnson - and support that argument with stats.

I have no doubt that Colston and his agent will be using those exact same stats to squeeze every last dollar bill out of their new contract - whomever it may be with.

Colston's agent might argue that if Colston was thrown to more often than he was, he would've produced more yards, more yards than Johnson did.

Johnson's yards per each caught pass was 10.6 yards, and the same figure for Colston was 11.9 yards. If Colston would've have caught as many passes as Johnson this regular season he would've had exactly 200 yards more than what Johson ended up with.

Additionally, the agent could also remind the other side that Colston had a superior catching percentage than Johnson and, therefore, he wouldn't even need to be thrown to as many times as to Johnson to reach that certain number of caught passes.

Obviously there are more variables involved than just the two WRs - the QB throwing to them being the most obvious - but doesn't take anything away from this type of an argument when it is based purely on stat interpretation.