Denver Broncos: 5 teams that could trade for WR Tim Patrick
1. New Orleans Saints
The New Orleans Saints are officially in the post-Drew Brees era. With one Super Bowl championship since Brees arrived in 2006 and some of the best and most exciting football for more than a decade league-wide, it’s difficult to consider the Drew Brees era for New Orleans anything but a resounding success, even if the team wasn’t able to win more than one title.
The Saints are now in a position the Denver Broncos can empathize with.
After the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl 50, Peyton Manning rode off into the sunset and much of the roster that won it all was gone the following season. Replacing a Hall of Fame, record-breaking, truly generational quarterback is not easy.
The Saints have had to do some very similar things the Denver Broncos did in 2016 here in the 2021 offseason. They’ve had to find some way to “replace” Drew Brees as the Broncos did with Peyton Manning. They have also had to do some serious salary cap gymnastics to put their team together.
Unlike the Denver Broncos, however, the Saints did not move up in this year’s draft for a quarterback.
Jameis Winston is the presumptive starter in New Orleans, his second year with the team after getting let go by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who drafted him 1st overall in the 2015 NFL Draft.
Winston has Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara to get the ball to, but who else?
Emmanuel Sanders and Jared Cook combined for 142 targets for the Saints last season, and both players departed in free agency.
Behind Thomas, Tre’Quan Smith is a fine option but in three NFL seasons, he’s proven to be a WR3 type at best, and the Saints would probably be much more comfortable with him as a WR4.
The Saints’ depth behind Thomas and Smith at wide receiver is a bunch of former undrafted free agents and 2021 seventh-round pick Kawaan Baker.
Tim Patrick would be a Godsend.
The Saints have somehow managed to get more than $11 million under the cap, so Patrick would fit in nicely there. They are also projected for additional third- and fourth-round compensatory picks in 2022, so surrendering what they would hope to be a late-2nd-round pick would be borderline negligible.
The Broncos would probably be open to the possibility of dealing with New Orleans because it would be a worthwhile 2nd-round flyer given Jameis Winston is the QB, not Drew Brees. Who knows how this season is going to go for the Saints?
It would also give Patrick a clear WR2 role to go to and really cash in in 2022 free agency somewhere.