Saints rework Taysom Hill’s contract, expand his offensive role

This marks the third time in three years that the Saints have reworked Hill’s pact, and it increases his chances of remaining with the club through the end of his current deal or landing another contract. If he were to be released as a non-June 1 cut next year, the Saints would incur $17.7M of dead money.

Of course, the Saints likely have no desire to move on from their jack-of-all-trades weapon, who racked up 114 total receiving and rushing touches and 692 yards in 2023, both of which were career bests. He also completed 6-of-11 passes for 83 yards and accounted for seven total touchdowns.

Under new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, Hill’s role could expand even further, as Matthew Paras of The Advocate details. During OTAs, Hill lined up as a running back — most of his career runs have come when taking the snap as a quarterback — and at fullback. 

His work at fullback naturally entailed putting his hand in the dirt in a three-point stance and serving as a lead blocker. Just 29 of Hill’s 426 offensive snaps in 2023 came out of the backfield, and it sounds as if that might change in a big way in 2024.

Hill, who is entering his age-34 season, welcomes the new opportunities. 

“It’s been a lot of fun,” Hill said. “It’s weird to say after seven years of doing what I’ve been doing that I’m being asked to do things I’ve never done before. That is exciting to me and it’s challenging, and I love to be challenged like that. I’m grateful for those guys creating unique and fun opportunities for me.”

Kubiak and Co. will likely still give Hill several chances as a receiver, and it would be fair to expect him to get his customary handful of passing attempts as well. As always, training camp will shed more light on exactly what the team has in mind.

“Taysom has been phenomenal here early,” Kubiak said during rookie minicamp. “We’ve been kind of moving him in a lot of spots as he has his entire career. He’s a really intelligent guy, and we’re looking forward to giving him a lot of volume early. And then we’ll start narrowing it down as we get closer to the season.”

The Saints are now $12M under the cap and have their entire 2024 draft class under contract, so they have plenty of room to operate (although they do have a contractual dispute with RB Alvin Kamara that will need to be resolved in some way).