Don't forget the rhinoceros head sitting on the table here. We may need him sooner than we think once godell finally ends his long term back door Saints screwing.

Les Miles says he is a great pick for the Saints and will come in and produce right away.

They were comparing him to Michael Brockers and say he would have went in the first round if he could have stayed at LSU...

That's one good addition on the Dline. Now give me another DT or CB!

BIG!

I don't make things up, and I really get tired of being accused of such. What I have read about him is that he doesn't play through the whistle consistently, he has bad technique, which wouldn't be a problem if he worked harder, and that he has some character issues.

I believe people can change, and am hoping he will. But that is the book on him right now, not according to me, but according to people who evaluate players for a living. I am not a negative guy, so I wouldn't just randomly make up something bad about a player on my team.

Do not ever accuse me of making things up about my team.

Well please by all means, post the links to these things you say because everything I have read had said the opposite.

I think we can all agree that the Saints wanted him or they wouldn't have taken him. I am only giving my opinion on a pick that I did not personally care for. I think he has potential but I don't agree with the Saints grade on him.

I understand that we have a great offense, and I mentioned that in a reply to someone else on here. But we have already upgraded quite a bit through free agency on the defensive side of the ball, so I don't see a glaring need there. I do agree, of course, that we need more help on defense still, than we do on offense. But we have weak offensive tackles who almost got drew killed against the Rams, and forced the Saints to come up with a new blocking scheme to help those guys out. If anything happens to Drew, you can forget about the offense, so don't you want to keep him upright? I'm not saying we had to select Massie, but I thought he was more of a sure thing than Hicks. We upgraded at DT with Bunkley, and we could use some depth there, but what sort of depth do we have at OT?

If we had a pick in the first two rounds then absolutely we could have gotten a more proven impact defensive player, and that would have been great. But now we just have to hope that Hicks works out. Remember Jonathan Sullivan? Al Woods, Demario Pressley, Sedrick Ellis? The Saints have done a poor job drafting DT's and Ellis is the only guy who wasn't a complete flop. Then they sign Franklin and Rogers last year and that bombed.

So pardon me if I don't just bow to the Saints and automatically trust them when they Draft a guy like this. I love the Saints, and think they are brilliant with most things, but this is an area where I will be skeptical until given a reason not to be.

I'll give you one thing Metal, I would have liked the Massie pick in the 3rd then the Hicks pick. I highly doubt he was on ANYBODIES radar in the 3rd round.

Then again, like mentioned by Papz, what do we as fans know? I kinda like the pick if for no other reason, there was no hype with him. Guy's we have gotten with hype have been crap. So maybe a little reverse psychology is play here :)

We'll see Mike. I hope he becomes the greatest lineman we've ever had.

Here are a couple links as to what I was talking about with Hicks. and again, I am pulling for this guy, but I'm going on what I know about him so far:

Akiem Hicks, Regina, NFL Draft - CBSSports.com - NFLDraftScout.com

DT Akiem Hicks Scouting Report | Buffalo Bills Draft

It seems that some scouts have different views as to where the character concerns come from, but they agree that he seems to get frustrated and not play hard through the whistle if he isn't successful just mauling the guy in front of him. And that's a potential problem considering he was going up against nobody. If he keeps his motor running, he'll be alright.

This guy wasn't drafted to be a pro bowler tomorrow.

This kids is a developmental project.