Saints To Release WR Brandon Coleman

The Saints will release wide receiver Brandon Coleman with a failed physical designation, according to Field Yates of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Coleman had been sidelined by an unspecified injury in recent weeks, tweets Mike Triplett of ESPN.com.

New Orleans declined to tender Coleman as a restricted free agent earlier this year, failing to bring him back on an original round tender that would have cost $1.9MM. Instead, the Saints re-signed Coleman in April to a deal that had a maximum value of $1MM.

Exactly how often Coleman was to contribute during the upcoming season had been unclear, as the Saints improved their wide receiving corps over the offseason. 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 was — 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 tenure wit 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 26 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.