Saints have "resumed dialogue" with unsigned franchise player Drew Brees
 

ESPN's Ed Werder reports the Saints have "resumed dialogue" with unsigned franchise player Drew Brees, but the sides remain roughly $2 million-per-year apart in long-term contract negotiations.

Brees is missing the Saints' current mandatory minicamp. "I'm told by a source close to the stalemate in negotiations that dialogue between Saints GM Mickey Loomis and Tom Condon, the agent for Brees, has resumed, but so far has not resulted in any substantial progress," Werder reported. "... The two sides are believed to be about $2 million-a-year apart. And I'm told that Brees is committed to his position because, at 33, he recognizes this could be the final contract of his NFL career. That there are no guarantees beyond that."

ESPN report... so take it for what it's worth.

Better than not talkin at all I guess. I figured they would start talkin again at least a few weeks befor July 16th. Negotiations of this magnitude seem to not get done untill like Days or sometimes hours before a deadline.

2 million dollars one way or the other is not enough more to cripple the team. I say give it too him.Funny how the Patriots made Brady the highest paid QB and it didn't cripple their team. This crippling the team theory is nonsense.

Benson should give Drew anything he wants, he is a beast and worked wonders for the city of New Orleans.

I ranked this thread and posted it on that other site and got flamed for it.

Can't give it to him if it isn't there.

How many championships have they won since Tom's big pay day? That said......with the new deals for draft picks, I think it can be done. We can re-vamp alot cheaper through the draft than we could, say...2 years ago.

DON'T PAY THE MAN!!!!!!! :p

Come on, someone start actually negotiating. They are going to meet somewhere in the middle. Who blinks first will determine whether it's higher or lower.

Well they started dialogue again so someone blinked. Someone had to have the notion of bending one way or another for them to resume talks.

I say we just give Chase the money and let him beast.

You know, every time I hear the difference between the sides... now at 2 million, it seems like it's getting lower gradually; I wonder which side is budging or if they are both budging.

Its been 2 million for a while now.

How much cap space do we have? It's not like Benson doesn't have the money, just every team has to abide by the same cap amount...

last I remember we had to restructure contracts just to get Lofton & Hawthorne signed...

I can't believe it's June and we still have these threads. Very frustrated at the pace of these negotiations.

I might be mistaken but Benson can be a gazillionaire but still have to abide by the cap.

That was my point; Benson has all the money in the world, but the NFL only allows each team to spend 120 million this year on player salaries

you gotta pay to play.....Come on drew, do it for the fans

I've got a feeling that money isn't really a big issue here. Something in my gut says that Drew just really isn't in a big hurry to get to camp. Remember how busy he was last offseason? Remember when favre wouldn't commit to playing until later in the offseason, so he wouldn't have to go through the entire training camp? I may be completley wrong, it's just a hunch.

Man if i had 2million i could give away. I'd give it to Drew. That Super Bowl win was worth every dime. The day of my sports life.

I totally disagree with Danno n Dune on this one. After all we went through in years past with subpar quarterback play and miserable losing seasons how could you not support Brees on this one. No one man is a team but this is the one position you cannot hide bad play with another players overachieving. If we had a shutdown defense like old Chicago or Tampa we may have the luxury of having a barley average quarterback and still win. Even when we had the best defense in our history we couldn't get it done. I don't think we are anywhere near that defensively.

I'm not saying I don't want Brees, I just don't want to be unable to field a competitive team around him by giving him a blank check.