Saints' Fire Sale Sign of Preparation for Life After Drew Brees

I'm about to say something that will undoubtedly classify as blasphemy in the Crescent City. It's going to send more than one reader scrambling to the comments to say all sorts of unpleasant things about my knowledge of football, my writing ability and possibly my relationship with my mother.

However, given the flurry of moves the New Orleans Saints have made since the stunning trade that sent tight end Jimmy Graham to the Seattle Seahawks, an unpleasant truth is becoming evident in the Big Easy.

The days of the Drew Brees era in New Orleans are numbered.

On the heels of a disappointing 7-9 season in 2014, New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis has taken a buzzsaw to the roster. Graham is gone, shipped to Seattle for center Max Unger and a first-round pick.

Loomis hoarded even more picks on Friday. As Sports Illustrated reported, the Saints sent wide receiver Kenny Stills to the Miami Dolphins for linebacker Dannell Ellerbe and a third-round pick in the 2015 NFL draft.

After that explosion of activity (and the release of linebacker Curtis Lofton and running back Pierre Thomas, and the trade of guard Ben Grubbs) some began to question whether anyone was safe on the New Orleans roster.

According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, it's a short list:

And it's a list written in pencil, not pen.

With the trade of Stills, two of the Saints' top-three pass-catchers from 2014 have been shipped out of town. Sure, the Saints have made some moves to add pieces, agreeing to terms with free-agent tailback C.J. Spiller on a four-year, $18.5 million contract, according to Mike Triplett of ESPN.

That, on the heels of the team re-signing running back Mark Ingram, begs a question: Do those moves look like the pass-happy, grip-it and rip-it Saints of the past nine years, or a team moving toward a more balanced (or even run-heavy) attack?

According to Alex Flanagan of the NFL Network, Graham's departure was just as surprising to Brees as it was for fans of the team:

That, in and of itself, raises an eyebrow or two. It's possible some of that "shock" is spin. It's also possible that the deal came together so quickly that Loomis didn't really have time to tell Brees about it before the deed was done.

And at the end of the day, the general manager of a football team has zero obligation to run personnel moves past his quarterback.

Still, "shocked" would appear to indicate that Brees didn't know about the move until it was either completed or all but done. And what does it say about how management views their star quarterback's future with the team that they would trade Brees' top target without consulting him?

That's Brees' son, rocking No. 80.

Think that would happen in Denver? Or New England?

After all, this Drew Brees we're talking about! No other player in NFL history has as many 5,000-yard seasons under his belt as Brees. He brought the team their only Super Bowl title. He helped the Saints (and the city of New Orleans) heal after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

Calling him the most beloved athlete in the city's history isn't exactly a huge stretch.

Now, the harsher or realists among us would point to some other facts about Brees. He's 36 years old. In each of the past four seasons, Brees' numbers have declined in most statistical categories.

There's also been a noticeable decline in Brees' arm strength. Ian Rapoport of NFL.com noticed it back in November:

And now it looks like the Saints have seen it as well.

Mind you, even with all the changes hitting the Saints right now, the end of the Drew Brees era isn't going to happen overnight. It probably won't happen this year.

Brees' contract (the same contract that helped put the Saints in their current captastrophe) would make it nearly impossible to deal him this year. It would take a lot more wheeling and dealing by the Saints to find a hole to cram all the "dead money" they would absorb into.

However, David Steele of The Sporting News thinks 2016 could be an entirely different story:

"

With the exception of his age (36), Brees fits the criteria for players moved during this week's blockbuster trades: Brandon Marshall, LeSean McCoy, Haloti Ngata, Sam Bradford (to an extent) and Jimmy Graham (in multiple ways). They're valued players with some productive years left but have just a year or so left on backloaded contracts and cap numbers that teams can no longer swallow.

Brees' cap hit this year is $26.4 million. Next season, the final year of the monster deal he signed in 2012, it’s $27.4 million. New Orleans had to unload key players, including guard Ben Grubbs on Thursday and, of course, Graham on Tuesday after just one season of his big contract.

It will come down to how much another team thinks Brees is worth not just contractually, but in what it's willing to give up in order to avoid free agency competition for the future Hall of Famer if he gets released.

"

There's no guarantee that's how things will play out. Given the way the last week's gone, there's also no guarantee that Brees will make it to April as a member of the team.

We all knew this day was coming eventually. As great as Drew Brees has been in New Orleans, and for New Orleans, we knew that one day it would end.

Father Time remains undefeated, and we knew that sooner or later the Saints would be forced to move on to their next chapter as a franchise.

However, Loomis is making trades that move the Saints away from Brees and toward that next chapter with the speed of an Evelyn Wood graduate.

And it's a little surprising to see the Saints so eager to turn the page.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPManor.