On Tuesday, New Orleans Saints agreed to a two-year deal with quarterback Drew Brees that is worth $50 million.
The 41-year-old quarterback resigned with his longtime organization with the same deal as in value from the last time he signed in 2018. The quarterback will receive $25 million each year over his new two-year contract. This deal is more team-friendly than the last signing, considering inflation of Brees’ salary since then. It’s still unclear whether the deal includes voidable years tacked on beyond 2021, but that is likely so that the Saints can spread out the salary-cap costs.
Brees, made it clear that he would play only for the Saints after announcing last month that he was planning to come back and “make another run at it.” The NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards and touchdown passes was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on Wednesday. But as promised, he didn’t even test the open market heading into his 20th NFL season.
Brees has repeatedly said that he believes he could play at a high level through age 45 but only if he wants to keep playing that long. He has been taking that decision “year by year” for the past several years now. Brees has also agreed to be paid “year by year” with a series of contracts that guarantee him only one year of salary at a time. The last time he was a free agent in 2018, he also accepted slightly less than market value with a two-year, $50 million contract that included just $27 million guaranteed.
Even, with the resigning of the franchise quarterback, it is still up to the Saints to get it done with Brees and resign all of their needed free agents before Wednesday to avoid a full $21.3 million salary-cap charge from his previous deal. New Orleans has less than $10 million in cap space which caused them to be unable to sign all of their needed asset, such as their three quarterbacks from last season. This includes backup Teddy Bridgewater is also an unrestricted free agent and backup Taysom Hill is a restricted free agent.
