Trey H (3 Viewers)

[Dome50]

Wow, forgot about going after Clowney...by the way, Hendrickson has more career sacks (53.5) than Clowney (50.5) despite playing in 33 less games.

 

[Alan12]

We can afford anyone. We can't afford everyone but we can afford anyone. We make calculated decisions on who we pay.

In a standard season, I'd be inclined to agree with you on that premise, but not that season we couldn't.

The 2020 salary cap was $198.2M and considering it had risen ~$10M+ every year for 7 consecutive seasons, our front office made decisions for previous seasons with that factored in, speculating that the cap should be close to ~$208M by the time the 2021 offseason rolled around. Then the COVID season happened.

So instead of a ~$208M projected salary cap it was instead $182.5M, about a $25M discrepancy they then had to deal with. Hence the massive number of releases of 2020 starters just to get cap compliant. Not including the required signings/draftees that would need to fill those holes.

The one to franchise tag Marcus Williams and let Trey Hendrickson walk was based on the fact that Davenport was under contract for a couple more years and the hope that he would pan out. I was on the side of teams don't let pass rushers like that walk. I wanted to keep Trey, let Marcus walk and have PJ/draft pick play FS that year. We definitely could've given Trey an extension that kept his cap number at or below the 10+mil we had Marcus Williams at. We chose MW over Trey. It didn't work out.

But lets say we instead just swap out the money from the tag we paid Williams for Hendrickson, we still had countless other holes in the roster (at starting roles or key depth) we had to address including QB1, QB2, WR2, TE1, TE2, FB, CB2, SCB1, LB2, DT1, NT1, and P. Of all of those positions, we arguably only upgraded at 2 of them: Alexander (traded for)/Werner (drafted) for Anzalone and Robey (traded for) for Robinson.

One thing I find interesting about the whole situation is the perception of who should've been paid vs. let walk due to hindsight. When you look at the stats, Davenport had better stats through his first 4 seasons as a Saint than Hendrickson did through his first 4 seasons:

• Davenport (2018-2021, 48 games): 21.0 sacks, 52 QB hits, 23 TFL, 7 FF
• Hendrickson (2017-2020, 45 games): 20.0 sacks, 43 QB hits, 18 TFL, 3 FF

If the front office really felt they swung and missed by letting Hendrickson get out the door (despite allegedly being able to make the contract work), don't you think they would've then extended Davenport (who had the better stats in a Saints uniform) in attempts to avoid making the same mistake twice (despite it would've been a colossal mistake)?

What it really seems to have come down to is Hendrickson blossomed late and was due up to be paid in a year we massive cap restrictions. Had Hendrickson developed a bit quicker, the team likely would've pulled the trigger on an extension before his play priced him out of our price range. For comparison these were the numbers the last few times we doled out big money to our young pass rushers:

Cameron Jordan (2011-2014, 64 games): 29.0 sacks, 50 QB hits, 31 TFL, 5 FF

• signed for 5-years, $55M

Junior Galette (2010-2013, 48 games): 21.5 sacks, 42 QB hits, 25 TFL, 2 FF

• signed for 4-years, $41.5M

That was actually Galette's second contract extension because the season before he signed a 3-year deal for $9M; his stats before that extension: 9.5 sacks, 20 QB hits, 11 TFL, 1 FF in 32 games

Hendrickson's stats through that same period (2017-2019): 6.5 sacks, 18 QB hits, 6 TFL, 2 FF in 30 games; personally THIS would've been the time to lock Hendrickson into a multi-year deal with the option to extend further at a later date like they did Junior, not wait until AFTER he explodes for 13.5 sacks. Jordan went off for 12.5 sacks in 2013, but he still had 2 years left on his rookie deal.

 

[liveoakh]

It definitely was money, had the Saints been able to match the contract the Bengals offered Hendrickson they simply would’ve outbid us with a higher offer we wouldn’t be able to match.

Davenport still had 2 years on his rookie deal when Hendrickson left. It wasn’t an either/or.

He just played himself out of New Orleans, which honestly is great for him because he’s arguably in a better situation now than he would be here with a sinking ship.

The Malcolm Jenkins situation was entirely different. It’s not like he had a breakout 2013 season (like Hendrickson’s 2020 season) and we still decided to pursue Jairus Byrd in free agency. Apples to oranges.

Do you remember losing Carl Nix, because Drew and the Saint's couldn't get the deal done till the bitter end. That was about $$$. We could have kept Nix, had the Saints just given Drew the money, he was going to get any way. It would have freed up enough cap space for us to keep Nix.

 

[St. Geezy]

You do remember the insane salary cap gymnastics we had to pull just to get cap compliant that year after the COVID season which resulted in the salary cap dropping far lower than they expected, right?

We released/traded 5 starters, lost 2 more to retirement (Brees and Robinson), and then lost 3 more starters once free agency opened in addition to losing Hendrickson.

If we actually had the cap space don’t you think we would’ve been able to retain at least the ones we lost in free agency? Our “biggest” free agency signings that year from outside the organization were Nick Vannett and Tanoh Kpassagnon making $2.6M/year and $2.25M/year. But yeah, we totally had money to pay Hendrickson $15M/year.

On top of all that, we also had to franchise tag Marcus Williams and extend 2 massive contracts (Ramczyk and Lattimore) at top money for their positions as they would hit free agency the next season if not and also franchise tag Marcus Williams, who we couldn’t afford to retain the following year either. It is what it is.

This was the most extreme of extreme cap anomalies imaginable for this scenario of losing Trey to occur though.

The cap went down significantly due to covid, the only time in history it has gone down instead of up, putting strain on our cap.

We also lost Drew Brees to retirement, which accelerated his cap hits.

And this was also the year that virtually all of our renown 2017 draft class’ contracts were up, so decisions had to be made.

No team can keep everyone. Even teams with “healthy caps” lose free agents.

At the time we had Jordan, and Davenport, who at the time appeared to be ready to step up. It made sense why we wouldn’t want to have signed a to that point, injury prone, one year wonder in Trey to a big money deal.

In all, no way can you fault the team for not having an unprecedented global pandemic factored into their long term cap economics. You’re talking about a swing of at least $25 million lost there.

The most bizarre set of circumstances led to us losing Trey. Just an absolute perfect storm of setbacks.

The losses from the 2017 draft class are always the ones cited as the “Why the Saints cap system doesn’t work” example, but it truly necessitated some crazy, unprecedented events to occur, including the greatness of that one class in itself, for this virtual one-time anomaly to happen.

 

[Alan12]

Do you remember losing Carl Nix, because Drew and the Saint's couldn't get the deal done till the bitter end. That was about $$$. We could have kept Nix, had the Saints just given Drew the money, he was going to get any way. It would have freed up enough cap space for us to keep Nix.

Indeed, just another instance of the team dragging their feet in re-signing key components unfortunately.

This was the most extreme of extreme cap anomalies imaginable for this scenario of losing Trey to occur though.

The cap went down significantly due to covid, the only time in history it has gone down instead of up, putting strain on our cap.

We also lost Drew Brees to retirement, which accelerated his cap hits.

And this was also the year that virtually all of our renown 2017 draft class’ contracts were up, so decisions had to be made.

No team can keep everyone. Even teams with “healthy caps” lose free agents.

At the time we had Jordan, and Davenport, who at the time appeared to be ready to step up. It made sense why we wouldn’t want to have signed a to that point, injury prone, one year wonder in Trey to a big money deal.

In all, no way can you fault the team for not having an unprecedented global pandemic factored into their long term cap economics. You’re talking about a swing of at least $25 million lost there.

The most bizarre set of circumstances led to us losing Trey. Just an absolute perfect storm of setbacks.

Entirely agree tenfold.

Sucks we lost Hendrickson considering he was really showing promise, but all these people still saying we could’ve afforded him “if they wanted to” is amusing. The front office has done a lot of dumb ****, but purposely not re-signing Hendrickson isn’t one of them.

We just had higher priority re-signings to make at top position money, had to cut several starters in order to free up significant money to do so in addition to getting under the drastically lower than expected cap.

People forget just how low the cap dipped that year and hamstrung our plans. Without that happening, we get Brees’ deal of the books in one season and likely never have as much as a hiccup and keep on chugging along while retaining nearly all our players including Hendrickson and Williams.

 

[Hank]

Thanks. Good catch. Amazing how much the Turner/Davenport picks set this team back. Turner has played in 14 games in three seasons (starting none of them!).

Turner is the exact definition of a first round bust--Davenport at least put some time on the field and potential upside.