According to Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, the New Orleans Saints are shopping disgruntled cornerback Keenan Lewis following his social media tirade earlier in the week.
Saints aren’t done making deals. Actively shopping disgruntled CB Keenan Lewis, asking teams not to divulge their inquiries …
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) March 13, 2015
Lewis took to his Instagram account this past week to say that he wants to be released or traded if the Saints refuse to guarantee the final remaining years on his contract.
As I stated in a previous post, if the Saints were to indeed trade Lewis prior to June 1, they would actually lose $2.05 million in salary cap space thanks to them restructuring his contract last offseason. If, however, the Saints waited until after June 1 to trade Lewis, they would actually save $2.55 million in cap space this season, but would have a dead money charge of $4.6 million in 2016 as a result of that.
The Saints have been busy trading quite a few players since the start of the new league year as tight end Jimmy Graham, guard Ben Grubbs and wide receiver Kenny Stills have all been sent packing.
If indeed La Canfora’s report is true, and it should be noted that he’s the only one reporting this right now, the Pittsburgh Steelers should indeed see about trading for Lewis as it would only likely cost them a third or fourth round draft pick.
Lewis is scheduled to earn a base salary in 2015 of $1.8 million plus a $700,000 roster bonus that is tied to games he is active for, so that would make his cap charge $2.5 million if he was traded to the Steelers. Lewis is also scheduled to earn base salaries $4.25 million and $4.75 million in 2016 and 2017 respectively.
I will believe this trade when I see it happen as it certainly doesn’t make sense for the Saints to do it unless they just want to eat up cap space in addition to being fed up with Lewis. Lewis has threatened to sit out the OTA sessions if his demands are not met.
The Saints did sign cornerback Brandon Browner a few days ago, so there’s that.
