With a new contract in sight for Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and the Saints not wanting to offer him top money, the Saints traded the defensive back to the Eagles. Ceedy wanted to be paid top safety money because he’s listed as a safety. The Saints didn’t want to pay him that kind of money which led to a holdout and separation between the two sides.
The two sides had been in contract discussions but those talks blew up which led to Ceedy holding out and not receiving coaching. The money that he was holding out for was never going to be paid by the Saints, so he was holding out for a new contract that was never gonna happen.
The kind of money that I suspect Ceedy wanted is in the $12M range per season which is top safety money when he plays nickel, not safety. Tyrann makes $11M a season and Ceedy isn’t better than Tyrann. The offer that I believe the Saints put on the table was roughly around $8M a season.
Teams around the league felt the same way as the Saints. Based on the trade compensation the Saints got (2024 6th and a 2023 5th) you can get a feel that not a lot of teams wanted to pay Ceedy or they wanted to wait until free agency to pursue him. A team pulled the trigger and now Ceedy is being paid safety money. It sounds like he’ll be paying safety in Philadelphia which makes sense because of the contract the Eagles are offering him.
That being said, the Saints got fleeced.
The Saints definingly were leveraged out in the trade. With Ceedy entering the final year of his contract the Eagles could leverage that to trading nothing more than what they wanted. Say the Saints wanted a 2nd round pick, the Eagles could just say we’ll wait till free agency to sign him.
I’m not sure what the rush was to trade Ceedy. The team could’ve gotten one more season out of him unless he held out the whole year which would’ve hurt his chances in free agency.
The longer the Saints kept Ceedy around the more it felt like he was a distraction. It was no longer about the team but more about the money Ceedy wanted. When there are players like that its inevitable that they end up another team (EX. Le’Veon Bell).
You can’t keep a player who won’t be coached. Those are selfish players and he forced his way off the team with the way he handled the negotiations.
Losing Ceedy is a huge blow to the team and the city, but let’s not forget how stacked the Saints are in the secondary. The Saints still have P.J. Williams, Bradley Roby, Justin Evans, Tyrann Mathieu, and Alontae Taylor who can all play the nickel spot.
The feeling I’m getting is that the Saints drafted Alontae Taylor to replace Chauncey who ironically replaced P.J. Williams at nickel. The Saints usually have a plan when they lose secondary guys.
They drafted Vonn Bell to replace Kenny Vaccaro, signed Malcolm Jenkins to replace Vonn Bell, and they signed Marcus Maye and Tyrann Mathieu when they lost Marcus Williams and Malcolm Jenkins.
There is a plan set in place for this team to succeed and losing Ceedy doesn’t hurt their chances. It stings, but it’s not enough to make the Saints a non competitive team. All offseason the Saints have preached that they are in a win now mode and have the team to win now. Nothing has changed and the team is betting on the pieces they have.
Written by Kadin Janisch
Related articles here
