Yikes. The New Orleans Saints quarterback situation isn’t much to write home about, but things could be worse. Neither Andy Dalton nor Jameis Winston have inspired confidence in the fanbase this season, but whoever is under center this time next year might not even look human.
An enterprising Saints fan on Reddit known as u/FauxJello took advantage of the artificial intelligence trend to create a rendering of what the next Saints quarterback may look like. Described as a “deep learning, text-to-image model” made public earlier this year, Stable Diffusion spat out an image after being fed a written description and some reference photos, and the results are unsettling at best. See for yourself:
Stable Diffusion
It appears that the Stable Diffusion AI made a composite of various Saints quarterbacks to predict what the next one may look like, which checks out as something a machine would do in this kind of situation. We can see Drew Brees’ old No. 9 jersey, of course (and the prospect of New Orleans letting another quarterback wear it someday is concerning on its own), but there’s also Winston’s long undershirt sleeves and Taysom Hill’s Olympic javelin-style windup to throw in there. If you turn your head and squint, you can see some Chase Daniel in the posture, bizarrely. Just try not to focus on the fingers welded together, the reversed elbow, whatever’s going on with the team logo, and the enigmatic cloud over its face from the helmet.
Anyway: all jokes aside, it’s totally unclear who will be quarterback the Saints in 2023. It almost certainly won’t be Dalton or Winston, though the latter is under contract next season, and it’s been made clear that Hill’s days as a full-time quarterback are behind him. Whether the Saints pursue a veteran free agent or trade acquisition, or roll the dice on a rookie in the 2023 NFL draft, the quarterback room should look much different this time next year. Hopefully it’ll be an upgrade.