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The New Orleans Saints have been widely criticized for their offseason moves so far, with the fanbase somewhat split on whether or not they have been making reasonable choices or not. This criticism heavily falls into the reasoning of many players being retained rather than a wipe of current players and restart.
There is some validity to those claims, in that the team most definitely should not be run back as it was last season no doubt. But the retaining contract of Chase Young seems reasonable in price and with him being young still it makes sense. As for Juwan Johnson and Dante Pettis, there is less clear motive, but both played their roles to a quality degree in 2025 and could be viable assets in 2025.
Regardless, the media has not taken kindly to these offseason moves, and Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports was especially critical of the Saints in his NFL free agency grades.
In this analysis, he gave the Saints an "F" grade for their free agency moves, alongside only two other teams the Houston Texans and the San Francisco 49ers, alongside two incomplete grades for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.
It is tough to validate anything above say a "C-" or something to that effect, but giving them the worst grade possible is a bit tough to swallow. They were able to bring in a high-quality safety in Justin Reid to add to their secondary, added one of the best run-stopping nose tackles in the league (granted, not a free agency move technically), and retained Chase Young on a reasonable deal projecting a breakout after a top-six season in pressures. But Schwab argues the rate Young returned for ($17 million per year) is "not helping the Saints get their salary cap issues under control."
While they have not made the big flashy moves everyone wanted yet, the Saints have fixed some needs and replenished the depth of the team. In addition, there is still cap space to be spent, quite a bit presumably given how they usually work with the cap space, so even if it were an F graded offseason, they have room monetarily to improve.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: NFL free agency grades: Yahoo Sports argues Saints have failed in 2025
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There is some validity to those claims, in that the team most definitely should not be run back as it was last season no doubt. But the retaining contract of Chase Young seems reasonable in price and with him being young still it makes sense. As for Juwan Johnson and Dante Pettis, there is less clear motive, but both played their roles to a quality degree in 2025 and could be viable assets in 2025.
Regardless, the media has not taken kindly to these offseason moves, and Frank Schwab of Yahoo Sports was especially critical of the Saints in his NFL free agency grades.
In this analysis, he gave the Saints an "F" grade for their free agency moves, alongside only two other teams the Houston Texans and the San Francisco 49ers, alongside two incomplete grades for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals.
It is tough to validate anything above say a "C-" or something to that effect, but giving them the worst grade possible is a bit tough to swallow. They were able to bring in a high-quality safety in Justin Reid to add to their secondary, added one of the best run-stopping nose tackles in the league (granted, not a free agency move technically), and retained Chase Young on a reasonable deal projecting a breakout after a top-six season in pressures. But Schwab argues the rate Young returned for ($17 million per year) is "not helping the Saints get their salary cap issues under control."
While they have not made the big flashy moves everyone wanted yet, the Saints have fixed some needs and replenished the depth of the team. In addition, there is still cap space to be spent, quite a bit presumably given how they usually work with the cap space, so even if it were an F graded offseason, they have room monetarily to improve.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: NFL free agency grades: Yahoo Sports argues Saints have failed in 2025
Continue reading...
