Drew Brees and the Saints Are Cracking Up

NFL free agency begins in less than two weeks, and the New Orleans Saints and all-galaxy quarterback Drew Brees are still far apart on a long-term contract extension. Things haven't gotten ugly between the two sides yet, but both are starting to test the other. For example: a "league source" -- who is almost certainly a member of the Saints front office -- tells CBS Sports that the club offered Brees "a long-term contract before the 2011 season that would have made him the highest-paid player in the NFL, and Brees and his agent, Tom Condon, turned the contract down." Now, why would Tom Condon, a smart man who works on commission, do something like that? Probably because there was something wrong with it: Much of the value could have been in incentives or maybe the money was loaded on the back end, which isn't something you want to wait around for when you're a 32-year-old quarterback who's six feet tall and has already had major shoulder surgery. Now there's a story making the rounds that Saints GM Mickey Loomis "tried to define Brees as 'very good'" rather than "great" during conversations with three separate league sources at last week's NFL Combine. Brees -- who is great, incidentally -- wants to make $23 million a season in the first three years of his new deal. The Saints are offering $18 million. So there's a $15 million gap, and bad feelings are in the air. If a deal isn't in place by Monday, the Saints have made it clear they'll designate Brees their franchise player, which means he'll receive a one-year contract for next year worth the average salary of the five highest paid players at his position. That's going to be worth about $14.1 million, $4 million less than New Orleans is offering in their deal, and $9 million less than what Brees wants. And he won't even have a multi-year contract. To his credit, Brees saw this coming: he unsuccessfully asked to be exempt from the franchise tag last summer because he was one of the named plaintiffs in the antitrust suit players brought against the league after the NFLPA disbanded. Quietly, the feel-good story of the quarterback who signed with New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and galvanized a region and won a Super Bowl is heading toward a very dark, very money-drunk place. For sheer ugliness, it has the potential -- if both sides don't find middle ground on a new contract over the weekend, and based on Loomis' comments and the leak about the previous contract offer, that's hard to imagine happening -- to make Peyton Manning's long farewell in Indianapolis seem cathartic.

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Saints place exclusive franchise tag on Drew Brees
Posted by Mike Florio on March 3, 2012, 3:54 PM EST
137367472_crop_650x440 Getty Images

A day after the Saints’ franchise was rocked to its foundation by news that defensive players received extra money to, among other things, inflict injuries on opponents, the Saints have earmarked a significantly larger pile of cash for a guy who plays offense.

Jay Glazer of FOX reports that the Saints have applied the franchise tag to quarterback Drew Brees.

A league source tells PFT that it’s the exclusive version of the tag, which prevents Brees from talking to any other teams — and which eliminates the risk of some other franchise offering Brees a huge contract and giving the Saints two first-round picks if the Saints choose not to match.

It’s not a surprise. The non-exclusive tag for quarterbacks will cost roughly $14.4 million for 2012. As explained Friday, just before the bounty brouhaha broke, the exclusive tender is expected to land between $15 million and $16 million, due in large part to the coming release of Peyton Manning and the recent restructuring of Ben Roethlisberger’s contract.

The move means that guard Carl Nicks will hit the market absent a new deal. We reported last night that, as of Friday, the Saints hadn’t made Nicks an offer.

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Report: Drew Brees is ‘livid’ about the franchise tag

Drew Brees was hit with the franchise tag by the New Orleans Saints on Saturday, despite having made it clear that that's not what he wanted. So what happens now? Well, according to CBSSports.com's Rapid Reports, Brees gets really mad.

Drew Brees is "livid" about being franchise tagged and not receiving a long-term contract, according to WIST-AM in New Orleans. The radio station cites sources in the Brees camp that he will not sign the franchise tag deal. Brees and the Saints have until July 15 to hammer out a long-term deal.

My two immediate reactions:

1) Of course he's livid.

2) He'll get over it.

The franchise tag means that Brees will remain a Saint for one year at a pre-determined salary number. In bad news for Brees, the number is calculated differently now than it has been in years past. Last year, a quarterback with the franchise tag made the average of the top five highest-paid players at his position -- in 2011, it was over $16 million. This year, with the new calculations, it's $14.4 million.

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Say Watt said:

I used to have a ton of respect for Drew Brees. He seemed like a genuine guy, didn't seem to be "all about the money", and appeared to really love the city of New Orleans and to want to help the city. Now, he is just coming off as a spoiled prick. It is difficult to not become enraged when a guy is complaining about making $14.4M this year to play an f-ing sport while the rest of the country suffers in these tough economic times.

Drew Brees just lost a fan (not that it matters to him).

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Texecutioner said:

He should be livid. I would to in his case. Brees has earned everything he's gotten in this league. He just broke Marino's record for god's sakes.

He is deserving of a huge multi year contract "RIGHT NOW" not after a franchise tag season where he could potentially have a career threatening injury or end up like Peydon Manning from this season. Hell, if anything should make you understand Drew's perspective here it should be Manning's current situation where he just got screwed out of $28 Million dollars now because his neck has had so many problems which caused his team to have no answer at QB right before the season where they lost so many games and they end up with Luck to replace him. Drew Brees is not some young sprout anymore and he could also get injured really easily. He is not really being greedy in this case. He has made that team and is going to be a HOF QB. Also don't forget that Brees has already been in a similar situation where an injury almost cost him an insane amount of money the last time he was in a contract year when the Saints signed him. Several teams were not interested including the Texans because they were worried about his injury at that time. The Saints were either the only team or one of the only teams that were willing to pay him a large contract at that time in the off season due to those injury concerns. He deserves a multi year contract and I don't blame him one bit for being "livid."

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Texecutioner said:

He is deserving of a huge multi year contract "RIGHT NOW"

He is not really being greedy in this case.

He has made that team and is going to be a HOF QB.

He deserves a multi year contract and I don't blame him one bit for being "livid."

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RazorOye said:

Which is why they offered him a contract prior to the 2011 season that would've made him the NFL's richest player

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The New Orleans Saints are not cheap, as they have been wrongly portrayed in the media. They offered Brees a deal that would make him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL.

But being No. 1 wasn’t good enough for Brees. He insisted on more.

The Saints offered Brees more than the $18.5 million per season Tom Brady and Peyton Manning make (made in Manning’s case now). They offered him a $30 million signing bonus. New Orleans offered Brees the second-highest amount of guaranteed money in NFL history in the first three years of his deal. Brees didn’t ask for $20 million per season as a response to the New Orleans offer. He countered by demanding $23 million per season. The Saints and Brees are far apart.

The Saints’ offer remains on the table. New Orleans would love for Brees to sign it. Thus, New Orleans was left with no choice but to give Brees the franchise tag. Sadly, that means they couldn’t tag star guard Carl Nicks. As a result, he likely will get a bigger offer via free agency and leave. New Orleans still has to deal with receiver Marques Colston, receiver Robert Meachem and cornerback Tracy Porter. There is a realistic chance they could all go as free agents.

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