The offseason is always a time for intriguing ideas and fun exercises when it comes to the NFL. Our own Wendell Ferreira at A to Z Sports created an expansion team as a cool hypothetical to add to the league.
So the A to Z Sports team built the St. Louis Arches, a fictional expansion franchise. We will do everything from a football operation perspective — expansion draft (and we involved our writers to get a fresh perspective from all teams), regular draft, free agency, and also building the top positions on the front office and coaching staff.
For normal free agency, we had to go back in time a little bit, because the top free agents have already been signed at this point. So this is the exercise: We analyzed every free agent signed in 2025, and added a $2 million "bad team tax" in each. We excluded some specific situations (for example, Davante Adams wouldn't want to sign with an expansion franchise in St. Louis at this point of his career) to make things more realistic. If the player is still available right now, we went with the average per year figure of their last deals.
-- A to Z Sports
Saints lose Justin Reid to expansion team
In his exercise, the Saints do not sign veteran safety Justin Reid. Instead, he joins the St. Louis Arches during free agency.
If Reid wasn't in the safety room for Brandon Staley's unit, that position would be the clear weak link for the Saints defense. Tyrann Mathieu is getting older, and Jordan Howden has not proven to be a long-term starter.
Safety Jonas Sanker was selected by the Saints in the 2025 NFL Draft. He would immediately be slotted into a potential competition for a starting role, if Reid wasn't in the fold. Luckily, this scenario is only a hypothetical.
The expansion team also stole a linebacker who has been with New Orleans for multiple seasons now in D'Marco Jackson. He's a depth player who has some special teams experience for the Saints.
