NEW ORLEANS, La. – A question Saint New Orleans Now will have to think as they get back to the first round of the draft: Did they use the option in midfield?
The Saints entered the season without their first pick but now have their 29th pick as compensation for trades rights to former coach Sean Payton’s contract arrive Dancer broncos on January 31st.
Finishing the first round isn’t an easy place when it comes to finding the most important spot on a team, but the Saints will have to flip every single stone after succeeding for two seasons.
New Orleans’ foul rate plummeted to 19th in terms of goals in 2021 and 22nd in 2022 in the two seasons since Drew Brees retired.
Saints assistant general manager Jeff Ireland admitted that he spoke to Brees ahead of the 2021 season to ask him what has made him so special for so long.
“I sat down with Drew before he left and said, ‘I have to know this, what makes you so special?’ He said, ‘Deal with speed, accuracy, get the ball out,'” Ireland said. “So some of those are things you’ll learn from watching the tape and some of them you’ll learn by sitting down and studying the tape with him and getting to know the kid. But that’s just one bag.
“There’s a lot of traits that you’re looking for in a midfielder. And some people have all of those traits — those traits often go very early. Some people have a few traits, and you do. You have to really evaluate, dig into those guys and find out what they’re made of.”
While The Saints have generally been pretty tight-lipped about draft plans, even Ireland had to make that clear at the Senior Bowl earlier this month, where New Orleans had four assistant coaches in the game, including a coach. Midfielder Ronald Curry.
“When we have Drew, you know you’re pretty well taken care of in that respect,” Ireland said. “We have a free midfielder, a team midfielder who trains under contract, so we’re going to be a little more serious this year because we need to find someone.”
Replacing a future Hall of Famer is not easy. It’s a process that seems to have begun nearly a decade ago, when Brees turned 35 – at least when speculation began that Saints might be on the market to replace him.
But Brees continued to play until he was 41, and the Saints never made a move on Day One of the draft to replace him.
New Orleans put Garrett Grayson in the third round of the 2014 draft and book of Ian in the fourth round in 2021. Grayson spent the 2016 season on the training team and toured several teams’ practice teams before leaving football in 2019.
The book kicks off a game in 2021 after all Saints quarterbacks were put on the COVID-19 roster and exempted at the start of the 2022 season before spending the year on Philadelphia Eagles‘ practice squad.
The last time they publicly admitted that they were heavily considering the position was in 2017, when Payton said Patrick Mahomes would be the 11th place pick if Chief of Kansas City didn’t choose him once before.
Saints can also take Deshaun Watsonwhom they tried to trade for last season, but they chose to go with the full-back Marshon lattimore. Watson was later chosen by Houston Texas.
Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said in January that he believes a team often needs to be in the top five of the draft to get a guy they really feel comfortable with. The Saints haven’t picked up in that window since they took Reggie Bush with a second pick in 2006.
“Full-back, in the history of the game, is generally a position you have to use early on,” Ireland said. “Tom Bradys really doesn’t show up very often in the sixth round. We were able to get one in Dallas, Tony Romo in free agency, and it was a bit of lottery luck. But you usually pick. really good people early on.There’s a reason why they were there in the beginning of the draft.
Ireland said the Saints also want to be more thoughtful than changing midfield just because they can.
“It has to be the right person,” Ireland said. “You don’t want to just throw darts. You want to be a lot more precise and decisive about who that person is. Because I think we fall in love with midfielders very quickly – and we fall out of love with midfielders very quickly. So, in my opinion, you have to be very deliberate.”
That situation caused the Saints to somewhat stall in their replacement plan.
Payton once said that the next quarterback was in the building, regarding Taysom Hill And James Winston, but that failed. Hill is currently designated as a tight finisher and although Winston won the starting spot against Hill in the 2021 season, he suffered a knee injury late in the season in Game 7.
The Saints re-signed Winston last season after the Watson deal fell through, but he ended up losing his starter job for Andy Dalton.
Loomis took a gamble last season when he sent the Saints’ original 2023 first round to the Eagles to allow them to get wide receivers Chris Olave and tackle attack Trevor Penning in the first round.
“We’re not in the [the top 5 of the draft] a year ago, and I certainly don’t expect us to be in that position this year,” Loomis said.
Loomis said he’s happy with that decision, though their 7-10th record will put them in 10th place in April. Either way, they will choose from behind a long list of teams in need of midfielders, including Houston Texas (No. 2), Indianapolis University (No.3), Las Vegas raid (No. 7) and Carolina Newspaper (No. 9).
The Saints are definitely in a better position than they were a few weeks ago without their first turn, but the late selection on Day One, combined with their active history in free agency, could have meaning they will be trying to make moves to remedy the midfield situation long before the draft.
And if they get to the point where a midfielder is a viable draft option, Ireland has offered some insight into what he may be looking for this spring.
“Full-back is one of those positions where it is comprehensively evaluated,” said Ireland. “It’s not just me as the college director, not just the coaches or the head coach. That’s all. You’re looking for a very consistent assessment of the quarterback. All of them. we have to go into that particular evaluation and say, ‘Yeah, we all want this guy.’
“So whether he’s a running midfielder, a dual-threat midfielder – if you’re asking me directly, I like dual-threat midfielders – but they have to be able to throw when When they can’t move their legs, they must be able to throw.”
