Taysom Hill Has Unique Opportunity

The Saints have a lot of questions to answer over the final five regular season games, but there's no denying that Taysom Hill has a tremendous opportunity in them.

Once upon a time, we were told that Taysom Hill was looked at as a franchise quarterback for the Saints. That was January 2020. 

A lot has happened since then. 

The Saints played through their 2020 season that ended in disappointment after another strong regular season campaign, and Taysom Hill had his chance to start four games for New Orleans during it. He went 3-1, but what stood out was that he wasn't ready then to be the future. Drew Brees retired, and we had a quarterback battle on our hands after what transpired during the offseason.

Jameis Winston was the favorite to win the job all along, and it's what happened after an entertaining training camp and preseason. Taysom Hill showed improvement, but took everything in stride, reverting back to what he did best for the Saints, being on the field and helping his team win. New Orleans went 5-2 with Winston, and then turned to Trevor Siemian to try to pickup where he left off.

Unfortunately for the Saints, it didn't work out, but that wasn't solely on Siemian. All during that, Taysom Hill had suffered a nasty concussion against Washington in Week 5, and it wasn't until Week 9 against the Falcons that he returned. One week later, Hill hurt his foot against the Titans, which we'd later learn was plantar fasciitis, which limited Hill's normal usage. Hill finally gets his chance to start, and suffers a tendon injury in his middle finger on the throwing hand.

New Orleans has been a team that has handled a lot of adversity, which is nothing new. They aren't hiding behind excuses and reasons why they aren't performing, and they very well could being down so many starters. This is the point of the year where things heat up, and you want to be playing your best football. Sean Payton's squad still has a chance to do that.

After everything that's happened to the Saints, the bottom line is that Taysom Hill has a tremendous opportunity at this stage of the season.

Think about it. What if Hill helps get the Saints into the postseason and somehow wins a playoff game? Of course, that seems like a tall task with the team having to play the Bucs on the road and hosting a surging Dolphins team on Monday Night Football after desperately needing to beat the Jets on Sunday. However, Hill going 4-1 could go a long way for him, and he's got to know that.

New Orleans is talent deficient in a couple areas, and that's not hard to see. However, the Saints could still make this thing interesting. Look to a team like the 2011 Giants. They started 6-2, lost four straight games, and ended up doing enough to get into the Wild Card round at 9-7 after winning the NFC East and went on to win the Super Bowl.

Now, no one is thinking the Saints are that team, but to think that things are totally over right now is clearly premature.

The future of the Saints quarterback room is uncertain, and that's clear to see. There are many talking about the 'pie in the sky' scenarios that would see Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, or even Deshaun Watson coming to New Orleans. You could even see a scenario where Jameis Winston comes back after everything he did this season, but there's no guarantee that he'll be ready for Week 1 of 2022 after such a brutal and misfortunate injury.

We won't know how things play out, but we do know that Taysom Hill has a unique opportunity to at least put himself in a better position to be the guy for Sean Payton in 2022. Whether that comes true will depend heavily on his play for New Orleans.

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