AsylumGuido

Drew Brees: Pace of talks not hurting Saints

NEW ORLEANS — Drew Brees asserts that his contract talks with the Saints haven’t hampered the club’s ability to acquire top free agents this offseason because he is committed to negotiating an extension that would improve the Saints’ financial flexibility.

The quarterback said in an interview with the Associated Press that he was “on board” with New Orleans’ recent bid to sign former Carolina Panthers cornerback Josh Norman, who decided to play instead for Washington, signing a five-year deal with the Redskins worth up to $75 million. Brees dismissed the notion that uncertainty surrounding his own contract undermined New Orleans’ ability to compete for Norman’s services.

“We all understand that’s not the case,” Brees said. “He went to Washington as his first visit. And if you know anything about free agency, usually, that’s the visit where, once you’re in that office, the deal’s getting done and Washington is a place where, historically, you’d say Washington’s got the deepest pockets.

“From my perspective, we made a pretty strong push to try to get him and obviously I was on board 100 percent and willing to do whatever we needed to do,” Brees added.

...

“Do I want to sign an extension? Yes, I do. Do the Saints feel that way? Yes. Do the fans feel that way? Yes. So we all agree on that,” Brees said. “That’s what we’re trying to do, is sign an extension that would not only keep me there but also reallocate money so that it opens cap room in various ways that would kind of fit the team and what we need. ... So I would say we’re all being pro-active in that way.

“There’s no timeline or deadline to this. It’s very open-ended,” Brees added.

“Maybe once the draft occurs and now you’ve got kind of all the pieces in place that you feel like, this is what we need and this is our team moving forward, then you’re in a better position to predict the cap for this year, next year and so forth.”

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This is exactly what I have been saying for the last two plus months.