Saints: NFL analyst mercilessly destroys Taysom Hill after preseason performance

Sean Payton still hasn’t picked the New Orleans Saints No. 1 quarterback, but that hasn’t stopped some NFL analysts from chipping in with their impassionate opinions on the matter.

First Things First host Nick Wright was merciless in his two-minute takedown of Taysom Hill on Tuesday and didn’t have a single good thing to say about the potential starting Saints quarterback.

He started out by half-heartedly wishing Hill a happy birthday (it was Hill’s birthday yesterday) before ripping into Hill like a lion sinking his teeth into a limp carcass.

Wright called Hill “a 31-year-old grown man who’s playing out of position” and “just a negative play waiting to happen,” which seems harsh no matter how much you hate the guy.

Wright’s comments make us reconsider whether Hill was really that bad last year. In the four games he filled in for Brees, Hill finished with a 72.7 pass completion percentage, averaging 209 passing yards, one passing touchdown, and 0.5 interceptions per game.

Plus, the Saints went 3-1 with Hill at the helm, which, despite the small sample size, doesn’t exactly depict Hill as the atrocious quarterback Wright says he is.

In any case, those weren’t the stats Wright was interested in. Wright talked at length about Hill’s “dropback” problem: last year, Hill led the NFL in dropbacks that resulted in sacks or turnovers. In Hill’s entire career on dropbacks, one in six end in either a sack or a turnover.

We’ll cautiously nod our heads at that since Hill looked rushed and anything but comfortable in the Saints’ last preseason game against Jacksonville.

New Orleans Saints: NFL analyst spews his “anti-Taysom” take on why Taysom Hill should not be a QB

But Wright had to take everything one step further when he grouped Hill with the likes of Sam Darnold, Carson Wentz, and other guys who had “miserable seasons on bad teams.”

And don’t stop him there. He even took some venom-laced shots at the Saints head coach saying, “A lot of this has been Sean Payton trying to massage his own ego.”

It’s true, Payton found Hill, developed him into an uber-useful Swiss army player, and gave him a controversial four-year, 140 million dollar contract. Ever since he joined the Saints, Hill has been Payton’s pet project that Payton may not be able to abandon just yet.

So Wright may not be completely off here, but the way he uses his words…man, we hope Payton and Hill have pretty thick skin.

And okay, we take back what we said. Wright does mutter one compliment about Hill: “He’s good to have on your roster.” Then, he quickly adds, “As long as he’s not playing quarterback.”

Wright ends his spiel as vehemently as he started it, declaring, “Taysom Hill is not, has not and will not ever be a QB….I’m not pro-Jameis, I’m just anti-Taysom as a QB.”

If you ever wondered what a takedown segment looked like, Wright did a pretty good job defacing Hill’s career thus far.

Oh, and Wright completely forgot to mention Ian Book as one of the Saints’ quarterbacks, too. It seems like he just wasn’t thinking straight today.

We’ll see if Hill can make Wright eat his words in the Saints’ next preseason game against the Cardinals on August 28th.