What To Do About Drew?

            The Saints wrapped up their season with a 20-17 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. While Saints fans always savor a victory over the division rival Falcons, the game did little for a team that has finished three out of the past four seasons with 7-9 record and out of the playoffs.  Even before the final snap, rumors abounded in New Orleans regarding the fate of head coach Sean Payton and franchise quarterback Drew Brees. Payton announced last week that he would be returning for the 2016 season and made it clear that he wanted Brees to remain the quarterback.

There certainly is a lot of appeal for Saints fans to keep the Super Bowl winning tandem of Payton and Brees together. Throughout their time in New Orleans, Payton and Brees have always had an above average offense as measured by Football Outsiders DVOA rankings (a reminder: DVOA means Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, and compares offensive performance to league average, so 10.5% means they were 10.5% above average).

Season	Offensive DVOA (Rank)
2006	10.0% (8)
2007	6.6% (12)
2008	16.3% (4)
2009	24.3% (2)
2010	6.4% (11)
2011	33.0% (2)
2013	16.0% (5)
2014	10.6% (7)
2015	10.5% (7)

Despite all the changeover in personnel since 2006 (and especially with the trade of tight end Jimmy Graham last offseason), Payton and Brees have kept the team competitive.

            Now let’s explore how the Saints can keep Brees and whether that is a good idea. Brees carries a cap hit of $30 million heading into the 2016 season. With a salary cap expected to be somewhere in the $150 million range, the Saints cannot justify spending 20% of their cap on a single player. The Saints have two options, cut Brees and absorb a $10 million dollar hit or extend his contract and spread his current and new salary over the life of a new contract. ESPN’s Saints’ reporter Mike Triplett recently explained how the Saints could lessen the strain on the cap by signing Brees to a three year extension worth $60 million dollars (a reasonable rate for an aging franchise QB). They could then take the total cap hit ($30 million for 2016 + $60 million for 2017-2019) and spread it out over the next four seasons, allowing the team to hold onto its prized quarterback and provide some breathing room with the salary cap. The Saints currently sit $10 million over the cap with only 41 (out of 53) players under contract for next year.

The Saints will need to get creative to keep Brees in town. 

            The downside of this decision is that Brees is entering his age 37 season and the contract would run through his age 40 season. Brees accumulated 14 AV (approximate value) last season according to Pro-Football Reference (AV was developed by PFR to compare players across position and eras). Let’s use 14 AV as the baseline for Brees’s performance—meaning he has to produce 14 AV to be worth his extension. The chart below lists the number of quarterbacks since 1920 who have generated at least 14 AV in their age 37-40 seasons.

Season	# of QBs with 14 AV or better
Age 37	14
Age 38	5
Age 39	1
Age 40	1

Now this sample has a self-selecting bias, you have to be really good up until your age 37 season in order to be playing into your late 30s. The chart also reveals that the quarterbacks who make it this far into their careers fall off (performance wise) very quickly. And once they’ve done that, their careers are over. By extending Brees through his age 40 season, the Saints will be betting that he can beat the aging curve.

            Last offseason, the Saints traded away Jimmy Graham and wide receiver Kenny Stills in order to accumulate more draft picks and restock the defense. This was the first of many necessary steps to remedy the team’s deficiencies. Letting Brees go is the next step, but one that the Saints may be unwilling to make.