NFL fans were rightfully confused about Taysom Hill’s $140M deal with Saints

Drew Brees retired from the NFL on Sunday with a sweet video that had his kids very happily making the announcement.

Then moments later things got super weird on Twitter when Adam Schefter tweeted that the Saints were signing Taysom Hill to a 4-year, $140 million contract extension.

That number is insane for someone like Hill, who has played QB hybrid for the Saints the past few years. It confused a lot of people, and rightfully so.

Schefter, however, added that all four years of the deal are voidable, meaning the team is doing some fancy accounting to make more cap space. It also means that Hill isn’t getting a $140 million deal.

Here are Schefter’s tweets:

Saints are restructuring QB Taysom Hill’s contract to create cap room. Details are great: it’s a 4-year, $140 million contract extension – but all years are voidable and it’s a mechanism to free up cap space this year, per source. It saves Saints over $7.5M against cap this year.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 14, 2021

Taysom Hill’s contract numbers this year include a $9.686 million signing bonus, a $1.439 million guaranteed roster bonus and a $1.034 million guaranteed base salary, plus incentives, per source. https://t.co/Ooy7akgPlv

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) March 14, 2021

Here’s more on that move:

Pay no attention to the numbers below! It's not an actual raise, just another way to take his current salary and push the cap costs into future years.

Saints have done something similar with almost every player making more than the minimum salary this year. https://t.co/Ur1k2dWNxG

— Mike Triplett (@MikeTriplett) March 14, 2021

These team capologists are really good at what they do. No is paying Taysom HIll $140 million. Some creative accounting to move some money around. The Sopranos perfected this practice. https://t.co/DFjLs5s6wy

— Vic Lombardi (@VicLombardi) March 14, 2021

Saints use a phony four-year extension for Taysom Hill to create $7.75 million in 2021 cap space. https://t.co/AAqGp6zls8

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) March 14, 2021

So yeah, calm down Twitter!