The Saints and Eagles made an unusual trade yesterday, a big exchange of draft picks with the NFL Draft more than three weeks away. It's a deal that's either quite good, or quite bad news for Jameis Winston.
The deal, which essentially gives the Saints an extra first-round pick this year and the Eagles the Saints' first-round pick next year, second-round pick two years from now, and third-round pick this year (I'm ignoring the sixth- and seventh-round picks, who cares), makes a lot of sense for the Eagles. They had three first-round picks this year, which might have been difficult to use, sign and ultimately keep if they all hit. Why have 3 firsts this year and 1 next year when you can have 2 each year -- PLUS an extra third- and second-rounder? Howie Rosemann must have hit "accept" on that one in record time.
(This is setting aside the fact that if the Saints suck this year, which they very well might, their first-rounder next year will be higher than what the Eagles gave up this year. And the fact that next year's draft might be stronger at several positions than this year's is. I think the Eagles won this deal, and it's not even particularly close.)
From the Saints' perspective....
To me, there are really only two possibilities. One is that they love the first-round talent in this year's draft, and are confident that with that extra pick they can draft two star players to put around Winston and make a playoff run this season. So they give up some good future picks. This year, they're going to add a star with that extra first.
The second possibility is they wanted this extra pick to give them more flexibility to trade up and draft one of this year's few coveted quarterbacks (as I've mentioned previously, I think there are just two, Kenny Pickett and Malik Willis).
The problem with this second theory, or really any theory, is that they seem to have less ammunition to trade up with now. Is a 2022 1st really better than a 2023 1st, 2024 2nd and 2022 3rd? New Orleans either thinks it is, or they're talking to some other team that thinks it is. That's the weird part of this deal, along with the fact that it's occurring now, three weeks before the Draft, where nobody has any idea what players exactly will be there when they're on the clock. But the Saints evidently think they need/want that extra first right now, as ammunition for their next move -- trade up, draft a star, whatever.
New Orleans (after an aggressive pursuit of Deshaun Watson) signed Winston to a two-year, $28 million deal. He'll be their quarterback this season. But it's a very short-term commitment, and if they want to get out of after this season, they can. It can be a one-year deal -- during which they develop a rough around the edges rookie, ala Willis -- very easily.
I think they're starting Winston only grudgingly, which both their subsequent signing of another capable veteran, Andy Dalton, and this trade hint at. Looking at his games with the team last year, he wasn't particularly impressive.
Winston played six full games for New Orleans last year. He completed under 55 percent of his passes in half of them, and only attempted 23 or fewer passes in two-thirds of them. They didn't want to let him throw the ball. Sean Payton is gone, but the team promoted from within, and their appreciation (or lack thereof) for Winston is similar. He's keeping the seat warm, and probably not for long.
Table below is sorted by passing yards. Winston threw for even 230 yards -- one could say, the team allowed him to throw that much -- in only one of those six games.
| WINSTON GAME LOG, 2021 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Result | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | Int |
| at Was. | W 33-22 | 15 | 30 | 50.0 | 279 | 4 | 1 |
| NYG | L 21-27 | 17 | 23 | 73.9 | 226 | 1 | 0 |
| at Sea. | W 13-10 | 19 | 35 | 54.3 | 222 | 1 | 0 |
| G.B. | W 38-3 | 14 | 20 | 70.0 | 148 | 5 | 0 |
| at N.E. | W 28-13 | 13 | 21 | 61.9 | 128 | 2 | 0 |
| at Car. | L 7-26 | 11 | 22 | 50.0 | 111 | 0 | 2 |
We'll see, but I think the Saints are still looking for their quarterback. It will be Winston in 2022, but somebody else a year from now. Maybe someone they move up for three weeks from now.
--Andy Richardson