At the scouting combine, New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis promised to be more active in free agency this year. There was some uncertainty about how he’d accomplish that, due to the team’s horrific cap situation, but Loomis and the Saints have delivered on that promise so far.
Thanks to several contract restructures, New Orleans has re-signed Chase Young and Juwan Johnson to three-year deals, traded for Davon Godchaux, and also signed veteran safety Justin Reid to a three-year deal. With free agency officially starting on Wednesday, it’s safe to assume the team is just getting started.
While these moves should help the Saints improve, not everyone has been impressed with New Orleans’ approach to free agency. ESPN’s Ben Solak recently handed out some superlatives after the early wave of free agency, and New Orleans won “The Commitment to the Bit Award.” While this is termed an award, it was really just another opportunity to be critical of New Orleans.
"The Saints signed free agent safety Justin Reid to a three-year, $37.5 million deal. That is decisively not stopping the spending and taking your salary cap medicine. It is spending 2025, 2026 and 2027 money -- money the Saints do not have -- in an effort to field a more competitive roster in the short term. We don't have full details on the structure of Reid's deal yet, but it will almost certainly be backloaded into 2027 and even borrow from 2028 and beyond. Why do this, when contention is surely not in the immediate future? Why do this, when cap health is circling the drain? I simply cannot tell you."Ben Solak (ESPN)
ESPN criticizes Saints for refusing to rebuild
The criticism has nothing to do with the players New Orleans signed, in fact, everyone acknowledges that they’re good pick ups. The problem, according to multiple analysts, is that the Saints are committing money to these veterans, when they should be moving towards a rebuild.
Should New Orleans have started a rebuild years ago? Absolutely. However, the team didn’t, and the Saints aren’t planning to this year. They have most of their core veterans under contract for at least one more season, so they’re going to try and maximize the 2025 year. That means the Saints’ free agency approach needs to be graded through the lens of what they’re doing, and not what they should’ve done years ago.