Drew Brees' looming $30 million cap hit led many in league circles to believe the New Orleans Saints would entertain trade offers this offseason.
Brees promised late last month that both he and coach Sean Payton would be back for the 2016 season.
Payton has already announced that he's staying in New Orleans.
Now general manager Mickey Loomis has shot down any possibility that Brees will be in a different uniform going forward.
"Drew's going to be our quarterback," Loomis said Thursday, via The Times-Picayune. "We'll figure out how we're going to handle the contract, whether it stays the same or it remains right in place, or we do something different.
"I keep reading how we're in dire straits with the cap and ... it's not a great cap situation, but it's not as dire as it's being made out to be. We know where we're at, we know what we have to do."
Brees was excellent in 2015, posting a 68.3 completion rate, 32:11 TD-to-INT ratio and 101.0 passer rating while playing through a rotator cuff injury to his throwing arm and a late-season plantar fascia tear.
As we've seen from Peyton Manning in 2013 and Tom Brady the past two years, quarterbacks in their late 30s can still produce MVP-caliber seasons with a strong supporting cast. Regardless of the cap number, NFL teams simply don't cut ties with legitimate face-of-the-franchise quarterbacks.
