Payton Turner will help the Saints now, but his pick is part of a plan for the future

The Saints had to do something to help replace the 13.5 sacks and many pressures Trey Hendrickson took with him to Cincinnati, and one of those moves ended being their first-round selection of Houston defensive end Payton Turner. An impressive athlete who bagged five sacks in as many games during the Cougars’ COVID-19-abbreviated 2020 season, Turner immediately slots into the rotation out on the edge. But his addition was made with a glance at the future, too.

Something is going to happen with Cameron Jordan in the next few years. He turns 32 this summer and is coming off of a 7.5-sack season in 2020, his lowest total since 2016. And because the Saints have restructured Jordan’s contract so many times, he carries huge salary cap hits of $22.6 million in 2022 and $23.1 million in 2023.

The way it’s structured right now, the only way the team saves any money by getting out of that contract is designating Jordan a post-June 1 cut in 2022 (yielding $14.5 million in cap savings) or waiting it out for a 2023 release (saving $9.9 million). Either way, he’s not leaving any time soon.

But that only happens if Jordan continues to decline rather than bounce back. His situation isn’t the only one to monitor in New Orleans; the Saints exercised their fifth year option with Marcus Davenport on Thursday, just hours before drafting Turner, which means he’s under contract through 2022, too. Adding Turner at this point gives him at least a year, probably two, before he’s asked to take on a starting role.

In the meantime, he can compete with Carl Granderson and Tanoh Kpassagnon for snaps, and all five players should get on the field often considering how heavily the Saints rotate those end spots.

So here’s what the Saints’ long-term vision may look like: if Jordan regresses further and Davenport doesn’t hit his potential, they’ll have Turner ready to replace either of them in the starting lineup. It’s unlikely that both of Jordan and Davenport fall off so badly, so you have to figure one of them will be starting across from Turner by 2023. That’s the same year in which the salary cap is expected to skyrocket, making Jordan’s cap hit more affordable (or an extension with Davenport more palatable). There’s plenty of uncertainty in how this all shakes out, but the confidence the Saints have in picking Turner where they did suggests he can help steady the situation.