Former 49ers QB a popular option for Saints fans

The New Orleans Saints have plenty of issues they need to address, starting first with Saturday’s game against the Cleveland Browns where the Saints are projected to be without their top 3 receiving options in Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry and Chris Olave, and wind chill is expected to be below zero.

But skipping ahead to the 2023 offseason and the Saints’ problems become even more dire. Who can the Saints turn to at quarterback? Andy Dalton has played fine, if unspectacularly, but he’s not under contract with the team for 2023. Jameis Winston is under contract for next season, but head coach Dennis Allen clearly has no interest in seeing what a healthy Winston can do with this offense. Taysom Hill is still around, but we’ve already seen what happens when he’s a full-time quarterback.

So that leaves the Saints with not a ton of options. When polled last week, the most popular quarterback expected to be available next season among Saints fans was 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo.

Frankly, it was a bit of a surprise to me to see Jimmy G. run away with the voting like this with Tom Brady netting “only” 10% of the vote and Geno Smith, who has played far beyond expectations in Seattle only getting 5%.

But when the likes of Daniel Jones upwards of 6% of the fan vote for the starting QB job next season, it should be no surprise that fan confidence as a whole is hovering less than 25%.

We’ll see what happens to fan confidence after the Browns game if or when the Saints are finally (and mercifully) eliminated from postseason contention.