FRIDAY, 3:14pm: The Saints have officially announced their three-year deal with Robertson (via Twitter).
WEDNESDAY, 8:54am: The Saints and Robertson are in agreement on a three-year contract, reports Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (via Twitter). The deal isn’t official yet, but word of the agreement comes as no surprise after Payton talked this morning as if Robertson would be on the team.
TUESDAY, 6:43pm: The Saints and free agent linebacker Craig Robertson are “working on” a deal, and head coach Sean Payton expects it to get done, according to Mike Triplett of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Katherine Terrell of NOLA.com corroborated Triplett’s report (on Twitter).
If the Saints sign Robertson, he’ll be the second notable addition to their linebacking corps since last week. New Orleans 
previously picked up James Laurinaitis, who is clearly the more established of the two. Nevertheless, Robertson has had a productive four-year career, all of which has been spent in Cleveland, and easily outdid Laurinaitis by Pro Football Focus’ standards last season. The site ranked Robertson 37th and Laurinaitis 83rd in overall performance among 97 qualifying linebackers.
For his career, Robertson – a former undrafted free agent from North Texas – has appeared in 58 of a possible 64 games and made 37 starts. Nine of those starts came in 2015, when Robertson amassed 59 tackles, a forced fumble and an interception in 12 appearances. Prior to that, Robertson racked up 85 or more tackles in three straight campaigns, including a personal-best 99 in 2014. He also has six career INTs.
Robertson was an inside linebacker in Cleveland, but the Saints already have both Laurinaitis and Stephone Anthony as middle men. It’ll be interesting, then, to see how the club deploys those three (if it signs Robertson) – not to mention OLBs Hau’oli Kikaha and Dannell Ellerbe.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Payton has said that Anthony will remain a starter, even if he has to change positions. Robertson would be a nice get, but it’s a little strange that the Saints would use their limited free agent resources for a position they just addressed and that isn’t hugely difficult to fill.
We lost Hawthorn and Humber. We needed depth. I’m not sure how the depth chart will end up, but I like the group of linebackers we have now much better than what we had last season. Ellerbe/Laurenitus/Anthony would be my guess as the starters, but Robertson is no bum, and who knows how long Ellerbe will actually be healthy.