The Saints have agreed to re-sign wide receiver Brandon Coleman, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link).
Coleman was scheduled to hit restricted free agency last month, but New Orleans non-tendered him rather than offer him a contract. An original round tender — the cheapest of the RFA tags — would have cost the Saints just $1.907MM, so they’ve presumably re-signed Coleman at an even cheaper rate.
Exactly how often Coleman will be called on to contribute during the upcoming season is unclear, as the Saints have improved their wide receiving corps over the past month. New Orleans landed Cameron Meredith after inking the former Bear to a restricted offer sheet, one which Chicago declined to match. He’ll likely act as the Saints’ slot receiver between Michael Thomas and Ted Ginn Jr., so Coleman is — at best — the club’s fourth wideout.
Coleman, who entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of Rutgers in 2014, has never been all that productive while catching passes from Drew Brees. His target share and overall reception total decreased in each of his three full seasons with the Saints, and he was never able to top 30 receptions or 500 receiving yards during his first go-round with the team.
But there are reasons to be somewhat optimistic about Coleman’s future, and his large stature is one of them. Coleman stands 6’6″ and 225 pounds, meaning he nearly has the frame of a tight end. That size hasn’t contributed to production out of the slot thus far, but Coleman is still only 25 years old. Coleman also fared well in Football Outsiders’ DYAR, which measures value over a replacement-level player — among the 71 wideouts with fewer than 50 receptions in 2017, Coleman ranked a respectable 13th in DYAR.
Oh yay