The Saints have locked up Marshon Lattimore. On Sunday, the Pro Bowl cornerback agreed to a five-year, $97.6MM extension including $44MM in full guarantees and $68.3MM in overall guarantees. Plus, through incentives, Lattimore can earn up to $100MM over the course of the contract. 
With the new deal in hand, Lattimore has secured the most guaranteed cash of any cornerback or safety in NFL history. He was initially set to play out his fifth-year option — worth $10.2MM — before approaching free agency in the spring of 2022.
The 2017 first-round pick has started all 57 of his games as a pro, missing only seven possible contests on the whole. Meanwhile, he’s notched three Pro Bowl selections in four NFL seasons. That includes his debut year, when he earned Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.
Lattimore, 25, has 55 passes defensed and ten interceptions over the course of his career. He stands as one of the most feared young CBs in the league but, in the interest of equal time, it’s worth noting that the advanced metrics have soured on him somewhat. Pro Football Focus pegged him at a stellar 86.1 as a rookie, followed by scores of 77.5 (2018), 65.6 (2019) and 59.1 (2020).
Still, the Saints recognize his value and had no interest in letting him get away. Now, after helping the team to rank No. 5 in 2020 pass defense, he’s locked in for years to come.
They kicked the crap out of GB today.
Yeah that was a shock. Aaron didn’t look like he was getting any discount Rodgers rate on his passes, that’s for sure.
poor Aaron’s ego…
What is looked really bad
Worth every penny in my opinion.
Apparently The Saints dont believe in advanced metrics..or math.. as they ridiculously destroy the CB market. This is absurd. There’s no justifying it. At all.
Sure there is, Saints just beat the hell out of the Pack, with the reigning MVP playing QB. And they did it with once maligned Jamies Winston pulling the trigger.
Makes a strong secondary look pretty valuable, no?
Thing is with Lattimore is that he’s a very hit or miss player playing in a zone system. Most of the time, he’s very good. Sometimes, he gets beat, and sometimes that is because he gets too distracted by a receiver’s taunting or perceived taunting that he makes a mental mistake. That second part is what gets me-shutdown corners don’t get distracted by head games (Mike Evans is someone in particular who Lattimore has had issues with, but I’ve seen it happen with other receivers).
I’m not really surprised that Lattimore has had hits on him by advanced metrics because he can be too aggressive with his play at times by trying to challenge the receiver and getting fooled-or then second guessing because of that (like his game against DeAndre Hopkins). I know that Evans and Hopkins are both great receivers, but Lattimore is being paid to shut them down and needs to be smarter in handling them. His rookie year was spectacular, but it was his best and he has posted worse statistics every year since. He’s gotten better in some areas seemingly. Last year, Lattimore was rated 8th overall in terms of forced incompletions in zone coverage, breaking up a rate of 13.6 percentage-wise, which is good, because early on he was a much better man corner than zone corner, and the Saints run a ton of zone. They will probably run even more after acquiring Bradley Roby.
Lattimore’s zone coverage will probably be the crux upon which this deal is evaluated in the short term, and for now, the Saints’ Ohio State defense will be intact for the next year or two. In the long term, Lattimore’s maturity and discipline, both mentally against receivers and in his assignments, will tell us how good or bad this deal was.
Somewhere in Miami xavien Howard is smiling.
He’s up next at seasons end
This looks like an overpay for a single DB (a team needs a lot of DB’s for a stout secondary). I thought the Saints were in deep cap trouble. No wonder.
If there are string attached, then they really aren’t guarantees.
With Bradley Roby, Marcus Williams, Malcolm Jenkins, cjgardnerj,Lattimore, Saints have a stacked secondary, plus emergence of Ken crawley. Not to mention the best linebacking core they’ve had in the sean Payton Era. Baun, demrio Davis, and Kwon.