Saints Rework LB Demario Davis & TE Taysom Hill For $12.75M

Field Yates of ESPN reports that the Saints have restructured the contracts of LB Demario Davis and TE Taysom Hill by converting their base salaries into a signing bonus.

According to Yates, these moves created $12.724 million of cap space for the 2023 season. 

Entering today, the Saints were projected to be over the cap again by $30 million. 

The Saints have been kicking the can down the road for several years now, so this shouldn’t come as a big surprise. 

Hill, 32, wound up signing on with the Packers as an undrafted free agent out of BYU back in 2017. He was waived and later claimed off of waivers by the Saints.

Hill played out the final year of his rookie contract before receiving a restricted tender from the Saints last year. New Orleans signed Hill to a two-year deal worth $21 million a month later. 

Hill’s deal was set to void before the 2022 season, but the Saints gave Hill a sizable contract extension.

In 2022, Hill appeared in 16 games for the Saints and caught nine passes for 77 yards receiving and rushed for 575 yards on 96 carries while scoring nine total touchdowns.

As a quarterback, Hill completed 13 of 19 attempts for 240 yards and two touchdowns.

Davis, 34, is a former third-round pick of the Jets back in 2012. He spent four years in New York before signing a two-year, $8 million contract with the Browns that included $4.2 million guaranteed in 2016.

Davis was traded to the Jets in return for S Calvin Pryor back in 2017. From there, he signed a three-year, $24 million deal with the Saints a year later.  

Davis was in the final year of his contract when he agreed to a three-year contract worth $27 million that included $18.35 million guaranteed back in 2020. 

In 2022, Davis appeared in all 17 games for the Saints and recorded 109 tackles, 6.5 sacks, an interception, a fumble recovery and six pass defenses.