Well that’s a good nugget. The New Orleans Saints didn’t make a move at the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, but not for lack of trying. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints were working on a deal that would have brought in Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, only for trade talks to fall apart when it got to the finances.
“The only one I thought might happen was Hunter Renfrow going to the Saints. There was just so much contractual stuff that they had to work out. Who was going to pay his salary, didn’t get it done by yesterday. In the end, did not end up happening.”
Renfrow is owed $3.7 million in weekly salary payments for the rest of the 2023 regular season, which the Saints could have barely fit on their books with an estimated $4.6 million in salary cap space per Over The Cap (Spotrac has them with $3.8 million in spending room).
One other complicating factor: the Raiders cleaned house overnight Tuesday with team owner Mark Davis firing general manager Davie Ziegler, head coach Josh McDaniels, and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi after a disastrous 21-month run while also sending quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the bench in favor of rookie draft pick Aidan O’Connell. There may have been no one to answer the phones when the Saints were calling to iron out the details in a trade for Renfrow.
“Explains why they ghosted us,” one source with anonymous team told CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson. “Nobody responded yesterday.”
So Renfrow will remain in Las Vegas and the Saints will stick with their three-man rotation of Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, and Rashid Shaheed, with Lynn Bowden, A.T. Perry, and Keith Kirkwood coming off the bench. At least for now. Renfrow has a $13.7 million salary cap hit next season and he was demoted to a decoy role in McDaniels’ offense. Unless the Raiders suddenly reverse course, he’ll likely be a cap casualty in the spring.
And it feels like a safe bet that the Saints will be interested. Renfrow was Derek Carr’s favorite target for several years on the Raiders and the Saints have been linked to him since March, before they even signed Carr. If Renfrow is ultimately released and becomes a free agent, the Saints could sign him without jeopardizing a future compensatory NFL draft pick. But we’re putting the cart before the horse here. At this point Carr has the same weapons at his disposal he used to play his best game this past Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. We’ll circle back to this Renfrow scuttlebutt in the spring.
