The annual NFL trade deadline is just days away (it’ll be at 3 p.m. CT on Tuesday, Nov. 1), and clout-hungry social media account managers are fueling speculation on struggling teams like the New Orleans Saints.
The most recent Saints rumors as the NFL Trade Deadline approaches
They’re adopting the same approach as pro football executives from around the league, who see a 2-5 team in Saints with a record that doesn’t suit the talent on their roster.
Likely not, given the financial stakes and the difficulty in offloading some of the Saints’ star players.
If the Saints were inspired to part ways with household names like Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas, they’ve decorated themselves into a corner by working around the salary cap, and it’s hard to imagine another team making a compelling enough offer to make it worthwhile.
They’d be paying for the player as well as the salary cap penalties New Orleans would incur by leaving.
People are still asking questions, despite this. According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, one NFL general manager believes that a Super Bowl contender could entice the Saints to consider a trade involving a valuable 2023 draft pick.
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Breer reported the following from a conversation with someone who was not involved in this hypothetical decision:
“There have been conflicting reports on Alvin Kamara, but one GM told me he thought the Saints would consider moving him to the Eagles if Philadelphia gives them back the first-rounder they traded in April.”
The Eagles would be insane to give up a top-five draft pick for a running back in his late twenties facing a six-game suspension later this year or early next season, but New Orleans would be just as foolish to agree to such a deal.
Moving Kamara would force them to make outrageous salary cap payments this year (which they have no way of avoiding), and it would be the end of Dennis Allen’s regime.
Kamara is a foundational player who should not be shipped off to a rival team. The Eagles have already been ruled out by Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio as a team interested in trading for Kamara, so this story doesn’t have legs, even if people can’t stop talking about it, much to Kamara’s delight.
That is not to mention that the Saints will not make a trade before the deadline. Breer mentioned “second-tier types such as Nick Vannett and Marquez Callaway” as players interested teams are contacting, and the Saints may benefit from moving on from them.
Vannett has a disproportionately high salary cap hit in 2023 and will almost certainly be released after the season.
Callaway will be a restricted free agent, and if Michael Thomas or Jarvis Landry (or, hopefully, both) return soon, his role in the offense will be diminished.
Neither player would accept trade compensation greater than late-round draft picks a year or two from now, but the Saints may accept it anyway. We’ll have to wait and see.
