Well that’s something. New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen announced Monday that he’ll stick with Andy Dalton at quarterback in Week 18’s regular season finale with the Carolina Panthers. Both the Saints and the Panthers have been eliminated from playoff contention, which makes it a bit of a curious move. So-called meaningless games like this are often opportunities to evaluate players with the future in mind.
So it says a lot that Jameis Winston will remain sidelined for the last Saints game of the season. The move suggests Allen and the Saints have already seen everything they need to see from the veteran quarterback, between his 70-plus starts with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and his three years in the facility with New Orleans.
Winston is the only Saints quarterback under contract for 2023, but it appears the team is readying to move on from him. It’s a shame that things haven’t worked out for him after he came to New Orleans looking to turn his career around, but injuries and subpar play led to coaching decisions that favored other options.
So what are their options? Winston currently has a $15.6 million salary cap hit for 2023, but releasing or trading him prior to June 1 would save the team $4.4 million against the cap. If they released him early with a post-June 1 designation they’d nearly triple their savings (up to $12.8 million) but none of it would free up until after that date, at which point it could be used to sign the rookie draft class or go towards midsummer free agent pickups. The Saints are over the projected 2023 salary cap by more than $50 million right now, so they may opt to make it a clean cut. Either way Winston gets into the free agency market at the same time as everyone else.
Or maybe we’re wrong, and the team intends to bring Winston back for the 2023 season. That’s kind of hard to believe after seeing how quickly Allen set him aside in 2022, followed by the decision to stick with Dalton for most of the season. Either way, it sure looks like the Saints will be in the market for a quarterback. They’ll have options in free agency and in the 2023 NFL draft, and it’s possible some trade candidates emerge around the league. We’ll just have to wait and see how the situation develops.