BakoSaint

This article has some good basic facts but misses obvious implications:

https://saintswire.usatoday.com/2023...XFNnuH_xFxiexg

Essentially Taysom Hill would count as a bona fide QB per the rule given his past experience and his snaps. But the Saints could have argued he was not, and kept him at TE who ran a few wildcat snaps, since the NFL would not insist for example that Edelman has to be a bona fide QB since he played it in college. Instead just as the new rule came out, the Saints designated Hill a QB not a TE.

The rule is that you can use an inactive QB as an emergency 3rd QB if you have exactly 2 active QBs, not 1 or 3.

By declaring Hill as a QB, it means if Carr, Winston, and Hill are all active, we can't use Haener as an emergency QB, because we already have 3 QBs active. So making Hill a QB likely loses us flexibility with using Haener as an emergency QB.

We would not want to use Hill as an emergency QB because it would mean he has to be inactive barring injuries and we are paying him too much for him to inactive. Also the emergency QB can't contribute on special teams etc they can only play QB.

The only way declaring Hill a QB makes any sense with the new rule is if we will make Carr and Hill the only 2 active QBs on most game days, with Winston (or Haener) as the emergency QB. Winston could still be the #2 QB on the ultimate depth chart, but if Carr went down mid-game we would have to go with Hill for the rest of the game unless Hill went down too. Winston could start the next game if Carr is still out. This would give us an extra active roster spot every game.

I can't see any other logical explanation. If we didnt plan to do this, declaring Hill a QB and giving up the argument that he is primarily a TE means that we give up the ability to use Haener as an emergency QB (unless we make Winston or Hill inactive).

This podcast guy was thinking the same thing I am except I think he misses something. He says we could go into some games with just Carr and Hill active and Winston as the emergency QB and go into other games with Carr and Winston active and Haener as the emergency QB but I interpret the rule differently. I think once we declare Hill a bona fide QB which he has to be to count as our second QB, then if we have Carr, Winston, and Hill active we have 3 bona fide QBs and can't use Haener or any other emergency QB. Thats my interpretation of the rule. I guess an alternate interpretation would be that we could change Hill from a QB to TE on a game to game basis, but I dont think the NFL would buy that, it seems an incredible stretch to argue that one game a player is your #2 QB and a bona fide QB but the next game he is a TE who doesn't count but you still want to give him wildcat snaps, and then the next game you want to call him your #2 QB again. I think that by declaring Hill a QB we can't have Carr, Winston, and Hill active and still use an emergency QB, but we can have Carr and Hill active and use Winston or Haener as the emergency QB.

Halo

I hope we use taysom better.

SmashMouth

So long as it's an FU to RG, I really don't care how the accounting plays out.

AsylumGuido

Haener's "suspension" opens up a slot on the 53 man roster without exposing Haener to the waivers or using a protected weekly status on the practice squad. This explains Taysom's designation. Winston can be the emergency QB now without question opening yet another slot.

BakoSaint

I don't think Haener's suspension explains much with Taysom's designation, I don't think they are totally related. Whether Haener is on the roster or not, you gain an extra active slot by designating Hill a QB and putting him in as the #2 QB during the game and designating Winston the emergency QB who doesnt take a roster spot. Haener being suspended just means that for the first 6 games you would not have had the option to argue Hill was a TE, keep Carr, Winston, and Hill active, and argue to designate Haener the emergency QB on the basis that Hill is not a QB which the NFL could argue as long as Hill takes QB snaps. But if you really wanted to play that card, you could still have played it the other 11 games much easier if you didnt actively designate Hill a QB now.

I think its possible the emergency QB rule was written with a 'screw the Saints' aspect. Its possible the league would have considered Hill a bona fide QB no matter what we did, because he played QB in college and had more QB snaps and starts than any other converted QB in the NFL, so the league could take that advantage and turn it in to a disadvantage where every other team gets an emergency QB but we can't advantage because our TE took too many wildcat snaps before the rule existed so he disqualifies us from having an emergency QB unless we make him our #2 QB. The Saints might have been expecting to be able to have Carr and Winston active, Hill active as a jack of all trades, and Haener as the emergency QB until they got the fine print of the rule, then realized the fine print prevented that, then decided making Hill the #2 QB for in game replacement purposes was their best option. Arguably the Saints were actually better off before the rule existed. Before the rule, no team got an emergency QB, and the Saints were free to use Hill however they wanted without disqualifying themselves from a benefit available to all other teams.

AsylumGuido

What?

Nevermind.

BakoSaint

Before Haener's suspension, if we were willing to let Taysom Hill be the first QB who would come in mid-game if Carr was injured, we could designate Winston the emergency 3rd QB who doesn't take an active spot in games, and have an extra player active for special teams.

After Haener's suspension, if we are willing to let Taysom Hill be the first QB who would come in mid-game if Carr was injured, we could designate Winston the emergency 3rd QB who doesn't take an active spot in games, and have an extra player active for special teams.

No difference. Does that make sense?

The only way Haener's suspension would make a difference would be if we were planning to have Haener fill one of those roles, game day #2 QB or emergency QB. I am not sure that would have been practical any which way. There is no indication Haener was ahead of Winston on our QB depth chart. To use Haener as our emergency QB while still having Carr, Winston, and Hill active, we would have had to argue to the NFL that Hill was not a QB under the rule, because the rule says you can't have an emergency QB if you already have 3 active QBs. The way the rule was written, that might have been hard to argue, because it included a broad definition of a QB and Hill was a QB in college, had QB starts in the pros, and regularly took snaps at QB. But if we could have argued that and been able to use Haener as the emergency 3rd QB, I guess Haener missing 1/3 of the reason makes that route slightly less viable but not much. If we had preferred to go that route so that Winston would come in if Carr went down and Hill could focus on his Athlete role, I think we would have stuck with it regardless of the suspension. We could have just given Bailey Zappe or Will Grier a tryout those 6 weeks if we were not comfortable with Hill being the first to step in for Carr and didn't think we needed the extra special teams slot.

BakoSaint

Alternate theory: The Saints changed Taysom Hills designation to QB at his request so he can appear on Peyton Manning’s Netflix reality show
Quarterbacks. Although he is not a starter, he gets snaps in every game and his hybrid role and growing family would make a good storyline for the show.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profoo...20to%20do%20it.'