| Good morning and welcome to the Saints Insider newsletter. Unfortunately I have not signed a $12 million contract in the last 24 hours, but I'm keeping hope alive. Free agency took off Monday afternoon with the start of the so-called "legal tampering period," and a couple key Saints defenders were tampered with (legally, of course) by division rivals. It started with David Onyemata, whose seven-season run with the Saints came to a close when he agreed to a three-year, $35 million contract with the Atlanta Falcons. There, he'll reunite with his old position coach (Ryan Nielsen, now the Falcons defensive coordinator). Then, the Saints other starting defensive tackle, Shy Tuttle, agreed to a three-year deal with the Carolina Panthers that will pay him $19.5 million. Those two deals hurt on multiple levels. The division got stronger, the Saints have just one defensive tackle under contract for 2023, and now New Orleans is officially on the hook for more than $10 million in dead cap charges for the 2023 season (part of void years tacked onto Onyemata's contract). Then, Monday night, a flurry of other news happened. - Jameis Winston will return to New Orleans after all, agreeing to a restructured deal to come back as the backup to Derek Carr.
- Marcus Davenport, who offered glimpses of tantalizing potential along side really disappointing lows, is now another team's puzzle to solve.
- Kaden Elliss turned his breakout year into a big pay day ... unfortunately, for the Saints, also with a division rival.
New Orleans will have to rebuild its defensive interior from scratch, but that might not be a bad thing — they struggled to defend the run last season, ranking No. 24 in the NFL in that category. Losing Davenport will only hurt if he realizes his potential. Elliss might be one that stings the Saints in the future. They wanted to bring him back, but did not have a spot in their starting 11 for him. That made negotiations complicated for both sides. Paying more than $7 million annually for a backup linebacker is hard to stomach, but Elliss seems primed to take off. And, with the start of the new league year looming later this week, the Saints also continued to chip away at their salary cap excess, restructuring the contracts for three star players to create about $27 million in 2023 cap space. New Orleans has now re-done 10 contracts this offseason, clearing about $69 million off the books. They should be cap compliant now, but still probably have a few moves up their sleeve. I'll leave you with something to remember about how the Saints operate: They are usually quiet in the opening wave of free agency, when teams are handing out big contracts. That doesn't mean the Saints won't be active at some point, just don't expect a big splash in the coming days. At least, not another big splash. They already did one of those. Thanks, as always, for reading. Cheers, Luke Johnson | 
