Drew Brees Guaranteed To Be Back With Saints Now That $10.85M Of His Salary Is Gtd

Update:

Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that Drew Brees’ return to the Saints was guaranteed once $10.85 million of his $19.75 million 2016 base salary became fully guaranteed today.

———–

According to Joel Corry of CBS Sports, $10.85 million of Saints QB Drew Brees‘ $19.75 million base salary for the 2016 season becomes fully guaranteed today.

• Corry adds that Brees’ salary won’t include any offsets either.

The Saints, obviously, weren’t expected to release Brees before this portion of his salary became guaranteed, but the expectation has been that they’ll approach him regarding a contract extension that could give them some much needed cap relief.

As of now, Brees is scheduled to make $20 million in salary and bonuses for the 2016 season, which includes a staggering cap figure of $30 million.

Mike Triplett of ESPN previously suggested signing Brees to a three-year extension that would pay him $20 million per year. The Saints would have options in regards to how they want to structure the deal and could drop his cap figure to as low as $16 million or go with even cap figures of $22.5 million against their cap over the remainder of the new extension.

New Orleans could give him a huge signing bonus upfront to impact his future cap figures down the road.

According to Triplett, the hard part of all of this will be deciding the total value of Brees’ new deal, seeing as Brees currently ranks 9th in average salary for quarterbacks.

Brees told reporters a few weeks ago that he would “absolutely” be open to signing a contract extension that would offer New Orleans a more reasonable cap figure in 2016, so it seems like this could get done in the next month or so before the start of free agency.

Brees, 37, has one years remaining on his five-year, $100 million contract that included $40 million guaranteed. He stands to make a base salary of $19.75 million of in 2016.

In 2015, Brees has thrown for 4,870 yards while completing 68.3 percent of his passes to go along with 32 touchdowns and 11 interceptions over the course of 15 games. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 6 quarterback out of 37 qualifying players.

We’ll have more regarding a contract extension for Brees as the news is available.