Re-signing Brees, Colston & Nicks could cost pricey veterans their jobs
 

The 2012 NFL free agency period may not be the kindest to the New Orleans Saints as they have 13 unrestricted free agents that they must deal with, including the big three — quarterback Drew Brees, guard Carl Nicks, and wide receiver Marques Colston.

Besides these three the Saints will also have to figure out what to do with corner Tracy Porter, wide receiver Robert Meachem, linebacker Ramon Humber, defensive tackle Aubrayo Franklin, and linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar — the most notable – among many others.

First and foremost it seems very likely that Brees gets a new contract, or at worst gets franchised for the 2012-2013 season while negotiations are ongoing to finalize a new deal.

There is now way that Brees is not wearing a Saints jersey until the day he decides to hang up his cleats for good.

Nicks is a Pro Bowl guard, one of the best in the league, and one sure to command big money.

Last year teammate Jahri Evans, his partner on the other side of center, signed a seven-year, $56.7 million dollar contract which included a $12 million dollar signing bonus.

Nicks should get every bit of that, if not more, to remain with the Saints.

Marques Colston posted his third straight 1,000 yard season, and fifth since entering the league six years ago.

In fact the only season he didn’t post over one thousand yards was in 2008 when he missed five games with a broken thumb.

The average NFL receiver makes about a $1.5 million dollar base salary per season, however top tier receivers can command upwards of $20 million.

Arizona Cardinal receiver Larry Fitzgerald made $20 million in 2011 after signing an eight-year, $128.5 million dollar contract in August just before the start of the season.

While Colston won’t get that type of money, Baltimore’s Anquan Boldin makes $6 million a year, while Detroit’s Calvin Johnson hauls in a cool $8.875 million dollar base salary.

Logic dictates that Colston’s new deal will fall somewhere in that range — $6 to $8 million — as he is more productive than Boldin and nearly as productive as Johnson.

That would be huge payday for Colston, who was tied for 14th in the league matching Houston’s Kevin Walter with a $3 million dollar salary in 2011.

Saints re-signing Brees, Colston, Nicks could cost pricey veterans their jobs

Sounds like the defense will be facing some cuts...

Pay for Production

Does anyone think that Brees will take a cut in order to keep other players?

I don't. Unless I heard it wrong...I was listening to an 8 + minute interview on WWL am 870 and he was going on about how the NFL was a business and how you hated to see fellow teammates and friends move-on, but emphasized that this was part of the business and he couldn't let his emotions affect his business dealings...or words to that effect.

Everybody knows that I have always been leary of his inner intentions...and I hope I misinterpreted what I heard...but in a way...I agree with him. He can't worry that they might not be able to sign everyone if he makes too much...he has to protect his own and his family's interest.

I have been very hard on him regarding this topic but I do believe that his ego will win out in the end. He wants to be the highest paid player and by all rights he deserves to be, but if he is the highest paid player after this is all over, there is no way that Loomis can bring everybody else back, IMO.

IMO it will be tough for you guys to keep Brees and Colston. The economics of it will just be really tough. Colston probably goes.

I dont think Drew is a selfish guy, but I think he knows his value. I dont think he will settle dwon on his money to keep others. My gut tells me Colston goes and Drew and Nicks get signed.

Brees, Colston, and Nicks are back. Porter is gone, Dunbar is back. Rest are gone I believe.

Has there ever been a year where Loomis didn't perform his cap magic?

We'll keep the guys we need, and restructure several others, add some vets to fill holes.

I'm startingto think we don't lose anybody we really need.

Will his ego win out in regards to wanting to be the highest paid player or will it win out in regards to wanting to win Super Bowls and be one of the greatest ever?

I tend to agree, but after you have 50 million, what's another 10? Would you be less happier in life if you were 10 million short? I know I wouldn't.

The timing is bad here. With the salary cap staying the same as it was in 2011 the only way to keep the team together is to keep your big name guys and purge the rest of your roster of over paid veterans like Will Smith and D.Henderson or get the big three to structure their contracts in such a way as to defer a lot of money to the back end of their contracts. The cap goes up in 2013 and again in 2014. I can see Brees and Colston doing something like that but I think Nicks is going to be less likely to be as emotionally invested in the team. The answer there is the franchise tag.

Guaranteed money in the form of signing bonuses can be a killer but if you can substitute roster bonuses, work out bonuses and other tools that a creative guy like Loomis has at his disposal you can do it. Injury concerns play into whether or not a player is willing to go that route though.

Time for Micky to do his thing.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Tracy Porter

First year with GW - Porter and Greer combined only allowed one TD pass against them - Roddy white pushing greer to the ground on obvious offensive PI

Since then... Porter has not been aggressive, he never fights for the ball, he struggles in one on one coverage which is very strange because he was awesome in 2009 at that.

Will be interesting to see if he could excel in Spags D, but Porters also scared to tackle, Spags wants tough, hard nosed, sit you on the ground kind of D.
If Tracy doesn't show he's willing to play that way, Pat Robinson is a good replacement, Plus Johnny Patrick showed us something late in the season - solid tackler

Not sure who, but several of the 53 will not be back in 2012. What rings in my ears is Loomis has stated on numerous occasions that he expects approx 20% player turnover year to year!

According to Payton, coaches took off last week and were to begin player and coach evaluations this week. Spags comes in next Monday...sure they will hold off on the D side of the ball until he arrives.

With their salaries, I would be glancing over my shoulder if I were Will Smith, Ellis, and Vilma (combined total of approx $20mm in salary).

On the O side of the ball, IMHO Drew wants continuity. No discount on his contract. Everything will be done to keep Nicks and Colston. Meach?

Nothing against Nicks, but maybe we can find a much less expensive option to help us out. Our team has been doing wonders with young linemen. Maybe Tennant could step up and play center and DLP move to guard?

Deep down inside, I understand what you're getting at. I've always had the moniker that interior lineman are easier to replace. Plenty of quality and elite interior lineman are found in the middle to late rounds of the draft. Prime example... our interior line.

Make no mistake about it though... I want him to stay, even if only on the 1 year tag. We have a excellent 3 year window to rack up another championship(or two), it's not a time to be cheap... and we aren't.

Its time the Saints act like Pittsburgh, Philly and New England ... drop the dead expensive weight of players that aren't performing up to their contracts (W Smith, Vilma) so the team can improve and move forward

Papz; anything the Saints do to protect its significant asset (Brees) and keep him upright...I am all for it. IMHO, that means NICKS.

Resign, Brees, nicks and Colston

Get rid of Shanle, Will smith, Possibly Sed ellis unless there are no other DT's available and free up some cap room that way

I won't miss Will Smith........Vilma, oh I'll miss him a lot.

A few musings!

IMHO, Ellis? I did not see a "significant" (operative word here) drop-off with Tom Johnson or possibiliy Mitch King!

With Dunbar and Humber, I also did not see a "significant" drop-off from Vilma (albeit he was injured).

Personally, I have had enough of Shanle. His worth has run (no pun intended) it course...IMHO.

Smith? McBride. Galette, Romeus, Jordan...sorry but again do not see a "significant" drop-off.

To me the bigger questions on D are; can Casillas stay healthy for a full season? Can Wilson pick up the new scheme of Spags? Herring, same as Casillas with regards to health? Bussey, is he ready for prime time?

I love me some Carl Nicks blocking, don't get me wrong. I absolutely am crazy for the guy. I hope they sign him.

But unfortunately, my gut tells me that behind the scenes, we may be seeing sort of a "soft sell" transition out of the idea of seeing Carl Nicks in a Saints uniform:

1) the fight/argument with the coaches during the Rams game
2) they gave him that one year deal in 2010, right after Jahri Evans got that huge contract coming off the Super Bowl
3) Drew's vague and bittersweet comments, about looking around the locker room and not knowing which guys will be back next year -- now remember when Drew broke the record, Nicks was the one who gave him a big bear hug and picked him up in the air
4) Nicks led the Who Dat Chant at the Lions playoff game
5) then there was that whole weird thing at the beginning of last year, August of 2010, where he got temporarily demoted to second string in training camp. Something was up with that, or maybe it was just nothing. Who knows. But I felt like it could been either Super Bowl hangover, or maybe that his frustration at Jahri getting that huge deal and not him, was reflected in his attitude during practice, the first week back, so the coaches sat him

But these things, especially #4, which assuming at that time, we were gonna go up to Green Bay, they knew it could be his last home game as a Saint, makes me wonder. We'll see, though.

He should not. While Brees' first contract with the Saints was a shared gamble, based on 6 years of production it was greatly undervalued. Brees' money should be, and must be in the low $20 million range. It's pay that matches his standing as hte premiere QB in the game. The only way it should be under $20 a year is if the total contract exceeds $120 million.

Bottom line the Saints will need to make some choices. As painful as it will be, the team probably cannot and will not pay Colston what he's worth. Colston has already given the team the hometown discount on his 2nd contract, and there's probably not going to be a 4th contract for him. So he also needs to secure his $12-15 million/year contract this time. But for those dollars it won't be with the Saints. The receiver corps will just have to have the next man step up.

Nicks needs to be resigned at all costs, even if that means matching Evans' contract.

It's going to be a tough offseason. I'm just hoping that it doesn't get so tough that Loomis feels obligated to franchise Brees in order to get his costs down. While it may be good for the bottom line, it'll be terrible for morale.

SFIAH

I wish there were salary arbitration in the NFL. This would be a great offesason for it.

I love a good conspiracy theory.

After watching the two Championship games last weekend, I think Nicks should be our #2 priority after Brees.

Did you see what the SF defense did to Eli? Holy Crap.

I know our Offensive Line wasn't exactly impregnable against the Niners but I definitely don't think Drew took the beating Eli did.

I love Colston, but keeping Drew healthy in the last 5 or so (hopefully many more) years of his career has to be our priority, IMHO; and keeping him off the turf would really help in that effort.

I can say without reservation that Carl Nicks is our 2nd best player on this team and he helps make Brees the superstar he is.

I hope we don't think just because we did well picking Evans and Nicks that it'll be easy to find a stud guard in the draft.

With Drew, the interior O-line is more important than the exterior. I have no problem with us paying our OG's like most teams pay their OT's.

I think Nicks/Evans are also why De La Puente had as much success as he did.

I feel it will be more difficult to replace Nicks than any other player on this team not named Brees.

HE MUST BE RESIGNED!!!

You get my vote!

the only think drew can do is pull a Manning and get Benson to pay the bulk as bounce money and minimize the cap hit.

Then sign one of the two Nicks Or colston and tag the leftover and resign them the following year long term

Kovacs>>>> +1,000,000

SHIAH,

Great to see you back here.

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.