With the 2020 NFL Scouting Combine just a week away in Indianapolis, some big NFL news regarding the 2020 season broke on Tuesday morning. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees announced via Instagram that he would return for another season in 2020 with the franchise.
As Brees returns to the Saints for 2020, it’s going to have a big domino effect.
The return of Brees means that New Orleans will likely let Teddy Bridgewater test the free agent market and allow franchise quarterback Taysom Hill to stay in the Big Easy. Bridgewater will be the top free agent quarterback available after Tom Brady and will be an interesting player to watch hit the market. One of the teams that should be active on the free-agent quarterback market is the Chicago Bears as they could possibly look to replace Mitchell Trubisky.
However, it appears as if Bridgewater will be out of their price point.
ESPN’s NFL reporter Jeremy Fowler was on an episode of NFL Live this week and talked about Bridgewater on the open market and what he could command. Fowler stated that Bridgewater could seek a deal that pays him $30 million annually. This per The Saints Wire:
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler fired up that conversation on Monday during an appearance on “NFL Live,” making the popular observation that Bridgewater expects to enjoy a busy free agent market and consider offers from multiple teams, both as a starter and potential bridge until a rookie is ready to take the reins. None of that is really surprising.
However, Fowler raised eyebrows by suggesting Bridgewater might draw as much as $30 million per year on his next contract. And that seems outlandish.
In addition to Fowler, Spotrac tweeted out something similar and added Jimmy Garoppolo’s contract which was at $27.5M per year.
After just 5 starts with the #49ers Jimmy Garoppolo was rewarded with a $27.5M per year contract, which represented 15.5% of the league cap in 2018.
Teddy Bridgewater has 6 starts w/ the #Saints & 34 in his career. 15.5% of the projected $200M cap for 2020 would mean a $31M AAV.
— Spotrac (@spotrac) February 18, 2020
The concensous appears to be that Bridgewater will get paid some big bucks in free agency by a team come March. However, if he does net a deal of $30M per year, then it likely won’t be the Chicago Bears.
Ryan Pace has very limited cap space to work with and giving out a contract of that price just doesn’t make much sense for the franchise at this stage. But hey, stranger things have happened…
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