A valuable player on the Saints' offensive front for the past four seasons, James Hurst will not factor into the team’s plans any longer in 2024. The veteran offensive lineman announced his retirement Wednesday.
Further complicating matters for a Saints team that has seen its O-line plan endure multiple setbacks, Hurst’s retirement strips away a key option for the team. Hurst has seen extensive time at tackle and guard in New Orleans, but the former Ravens blocker will call it quits after 10 seasons.
Hurst started all 15 games he played last season and has been a first-stringer 46 times for the Saints over the past three seasons. Last year, Hurst saw most of his snaps at left guard. But the versatile blocker played mostly left tackle in 2021 and 2022; he operated as the Saints’ regular starter on the blind side during that span.
With Ryan Ramczyk‘s career in jeopardy and 2022 first-rounder Trevor Penning having not yet panned out, the Saints enter the draft with major questions up front.
The Saints gave Hurst a $1.5M roster bonus on March 17, and he restructured his contract last month as well. The team reduced Hurst’s cap number from $6.5M to $2.9M, adding void years. Hurst appears to have taken a pay cut at that point, perhaps indicating this could be ahead.
This retirement will only leave a small amount of dead money on New Orleans’ 2024 cap sheet, as Hurst was set to be a free agent in 2025. But it could leave a bigger hole in the team’s O-line.
After splitting time between left tackle (in relief of Terron Armstead) and left guard in 2021, Hurst worked as the Saints’ Penning bridge for most of the 2022 season. Hurst logged 913 LT snaps that year, and Penning did not boot him out of the lineup upon returning to full strength in 2023.
The Northern Iowa alum wound up benched, but Andrus Peat slid from guard to tackle to replace him. Hurst ended up at left guard primarily, starting 15 games last season. Pro Football Focus viewed Hurst as a better tackle than guard, rating him as a plus pass blocker from 2021-22 but less effective inside last year.
Peat is unsigned, and Ramczyk — after knee trouble in 2023 — is uncertain to suit up at all this year. After many years featuring the Armstead-Ramczyk tandem, with regulars like Peat and Erik McCoy inside, the Saints are backed into a corner presently.
This is a good time to need a tackle, and the Saints are being linked to capitalizing on this deep draft class and bringing one in at No. 14. That path would mean two first-round tackle picks in three years, but the team would be taking a considerable risk by not going this route given what has happened at the position.
A UDFA out of North Carolina, Hurst did well for himself as a pro. The Ravens used him as a frequent spot starter — at both right and left tackle — and plugged him in as a full-time guard in 2017.
Hurst earned a four-year, $17.5M deal to stay in Baltimore in 2018 but only played two years on that deal; Baltimore cut him following a 2020 PED suspension. Hurst landed in New Orleans on a low-cost deal but scored a three-year, $9M deal to stay with the team.
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