New Orleans Saints: Thank you, Thomas Morstead

The New Orleans Saints started the offseason roughly $110 million over the salary cap going into the 2021 season. As a result, they have been making moves left and right to try and regress that number down to zero.

The latest casualty to this process is the Saints’ long-time punter, Thomas Morstead. Morstead has been with the team for over a decade. He put on the black and gold uniform in 2009, the year the team won their first-ever Super Bowl.

Morstead has appeared in 190 games over the course of 12 seasons with the team. For the first seven seasons with the team, Morstead was the punter and handled all of the team’s kickoff duties every game as well.

Another salary cap casualty has come; the Saints’ long-time punter Thomas Morstead was released earlier this week from the team.

In those seven years, Morstead kicked 533 kickoffs for over 35,000 yards and almost 300 touchbacks. Over the course of his career, he had almost a 50 percent touchback percentage which would be the goal for kicking off.

As a punter, Morstead kicked almost 700 punts. He totaled 32,190 in air punting yards with his longest punt being 70 yards. One of the most remarkable accomplishments of Morstead’s career was that he only had one punt of almost 700 blocked.

He averaged 46.1 yards per punt over the course of his 12-year career. As you can see, Morstead has been one of the most consistent and quality players for the Saints outside of one, quarterback Drew Brees.

His career is most likely not over and will transition to another team, but he will always be a Saint. He left a mark on the organization, the city, the players that came in and out of the locker room, and the coaching staff.

On the day he was released, Morstead went to the Saints’ facility and said goodbye to almost every employee there. His presence will be missed, but the Saints are that much closer to getting under the salary cap for next year.

Thank you, Thomas. From, New Orleans Saints Fans.