With 6 days until next Monday’s deadline for franchise players to sign long term deals, Drew Brees said today that he has no plans to attend Training Camp without a new deal and while he earlier said he would never miss any games, he did say that he would leave the Saints wondering if he would return for week 1 if he doesn’t get a new deal. This is even more bad news for the Saints in the Brees negotiations after it was recently ruled that Brees had been franchised before and thus the franchise tag value for the 2013 season would be 23.57 million.

If the Saints can’t get a deal with Brees done in the next 6 days, their entire front office deserves to be fired. Not having Brees in Training Camp would be a terrible blow for team morale and chemistry, two things that have already taken blows this offseason after BountyGate. It would also mean that Brees would be a free agent after next season and the Saints would have to pay him 23.57 million to keep him in 2013. And if it got to that, it would be an even bigger blow to team morale and chemistry.

The two sides are roughly 1 million dollar apart right now. All of those things I mentioned are simply not worth that small amount of money and it’s not like Brees hasn’t earned the money he’s asking for. The Saints have offered Brees 19.25 million per year, barely more than the 19.2 million that an older and more injury prone Peyton Manning got from the Broncos this offseason. Brees is asking for 20.5 million. Given how much Manning got, and that Manning was reportedly offered 25 million per year by the Titans, Brees would undoubtedly be able to exceed 20.5 million on the open market. The Saints need to get this deal done.

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]

[switch_ad_hub]