Saints Best Contract 2014

fair enough candidate and he makes a good case...

Best Contract: Junior Galette
Junior GaletteThe Saints are kind of a strange team when it comes to contracts. On one end of the spectrum they do a pretty poor job with planning for tomorrow due to restructures, void years, etc… but on the other end of the spectrum they also find these really good bargains on players. Marques Colston is one of the better players in the NFL, and has been that way for years, but they more or less pigeonholed him as a “slot receiver” creating a lower cost position. Zack Strief is an excellent tackle and they seemed to get him at a pretty reasonable discount this offseason. But I will stick with my selection of Junior Galette as the best deal on the team.
What the Saints did with Galette is a textbook example of how you handle a part time player who flashes tremendous potential and has huge upside. When Galette was signed he played about 30% of the defensive snaps for the Saints, as a pass rushing defensive end. That year I had created a metric using Pro Football Focus’ raw data sets that identified Galette as the third most productive rusher in the NFL on a per snap basis. It was clear that there was major upside. The Saints locked him up for $2.5 million a year, which was a discount on even his production as a 30% player. The following is what I wrote before last season on Galette:
The upside is gigantic with Galette and if he develops into a 600 to 800 snap player, the Saints will have someone on the team carrying a cap figure that is going to be about 1/3 of the production amount. This is the type of deal that allows them to carry the salary for Drew Brees. At worst he remains a pure situational player and he is still a bargain even at this price if he continues to produce at his current rate.
Galette developed into a starter, played 848 snaps, and sacked the QB 12 times. His cap charge was just $1.7 million. This year it will be just $2.9 million. His guarantee was $3.5 million. Compare his contract to that of Everson Griffen. Griffen was also never a starter but he did play more snaps. Despite the added opportunities he was, at best, of similar production to Galette. But Griffen showed some upside and ended up received a deal that will never carry a cap charge below $8.2 million and contains $19.8 million guaranteed. This illustrates just how good the Galette deal really was.
Now Galette can actually void his contract if he grabs another 12 sacks this season, which was the concession the Saints had to make. While he may do that I don’t consider that a major negative on the contract. As long as this contract remains he is not just one of the best contracts on the Saints, but in the entire NFL.
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