The New Orleans Saints spent a ton of money these past two seasons on two players with high pedigrees: safety Jarius Byrd two years ago and running back CJ Spiller last year. Neither has worked out for the team to this point, and in certain cases, for similar reasons. However, despite the similarities, one projects forward as a great bounce-back candidate while the other appears as nothing more than dead weight.
Jairus Byrd is a three-time Pro Bowler with 23 career interceptions to his name. Unfortunately, 22 of those interceptions came before he joined the Saints. His two years in New Orleans have been derailed by injuries and, to a certain extent, a lack of talent around him.
Is it fair to say a safety blew coverage when his cornerback isn’t able to get a bump on an outside receiver or force him the proper direction? Is it okay to blame a safety when he fails in an attempt to cover up for others’ shortcomings? Not that Byrd was always attempting to make up for inept teammates in 2016, but the numbers bear out that the Saints possessed arguably the worst defense in modern football history. According to Football Outsiders’ DVOA, the Saints were more than twice as bad as every other team in the league. At 11.3 percent DVOA, the 31st ranked Chicago Bears were actually closer to the 12th-best defense in football than they were to New Orleans at 32nd. Byrd had his hands full. And that was when he was able to play.
The injuries certainly played an important part in Byrd’s failure to meet his own expectations. He is entering this season’s training camp still on the mend as well, which is not a good sign. There is roughly $44 million remaining on Byrd’s contract, and there was talk the team considered releasing him, but that would be premature.
When healthy, he is one of the premiere safeties in the NFL. There is no way that jettisoning him will help the rest of his defensive teammates. Instead, this is a case of Byrd and New Orleans needing another go, to run it back.
The same cannot necessarily be said of CJ Spiller. He is a different story, though his career has also been shortchanged because of injuries in the past.
While Byrd’s best years seem like blueprints for what can hopefully happen in New Orleans in the coming years, Spiller’s seem like flukes. He definitely isn’t a starting running back in this league, yet he barely qualifies as a change-of-pace back either since he’s failed to reach even 100 touches in a season each of the past two years.
2012 seems like the aberration that we will never see again rather than the start of something big. Even though he became a quasi-star as a member of the Bills, Spiller wasn’t that valuable for a lot of his tenure in Buffalo. He barely started half the games he played in and almost has as many career fumbles (18) and he does total touchdowns (20).
His breakout talent and formation versatility made for unending speculation and possibilities, but because of injuries and disappointments, he never grew into the type of player we expected.
He is still owed $4+ million per year through the next three seasons, and that may be dead weight at this point. Mickey Loomis said that will see the “real CJ Spiller’ in 2016. Yeah, I agree. The only problem is the real Spiller is not the 2012 guy. So Loomis and company better prepare themselves.
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