Jarvis Landry is a better fit with the Saints than we could have imagined
We probably need to get used to the idea of Jarvis Landry being a one-year rental with the New Orleans Saints, but what an experience this is turning out to be. If Landry can keep up the pace he established on Sunday, he’ll end up playing his way into the sort of contract offers New Orleans won’t be able to match. That was likely his plan all along in signing a relatively-small one-year, $6 million deal, but it eventually opens the door for Chris Olave to step into a larger role in his second year with the Saints.
But we’re getting way, way ahead of ourselves here. So let’s take a minute to reflect on just how impressive Landry played in his first game with his hometown team. The veteran slot receiver led the team in both receptions (7), receiving yards (114), and first down conversions (4), looking like someone who’s been catching passes from Jameis Winston for five or six years now. His 40-yard grab down the sideline inside the game’s final minute set up a penultimate field goal try for Wil Lutz to seal the win.
And nobody saw this coming. All summer the thought in football circles had been that Olave would be the one feasting against outmatched opponents deep downfield, with Landry and Michael Thomas doing their damage at the short and intermediate ranges. Instead, Landry took advantage of all the attention going their way to bully one-on-one matchups way downfield; his 31-yard grab early in the fourth quarter set up Thomas for a goal-line touchdown reception, effectively sparking the comeback in the first place.
To illustrate how out-of-nowhere this is, let’s look at the Targeted Air Yards metric from NFL Next Gen Stats, which gives us an idea of how receivers are utilized at different depths of the field. Landry averaged 8.8 targeted air yards in 2020 and 8.2 in 2021, his last two years with the Cleveland Browns. But he clocked 13.9 targeted air yards in Sunday’s win against Atlanta, showing us a marked difference.
It’ll be hard for him to sustain this level of play as Thomas continues to heal up and Olave begins to assert himself in the offense, to say nothing of the adjustments opposing defenses will make moving forward, but Landry could very easily reach some significant milestones if his rapport with Winston is as strong as it appears.
He’s exactly what the team needed with so much uncertainty surrounding Thomas and predictable hurdles ahead for Olave in his rookie year. And the Saints were able to sign Landry at a major discount. If he continues to perform as expected, he’ll hit free agency in the spring and earn contract offers as rich as anyone else has seen on the market. So good for him. But that’s something to worry about on another day. For now, let’s just look forward to what he’ll do next in a Saints uniform.
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