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Mayberry was a good addition, but he is a natural OG. The team is saying he will play RT, but they are still courting Fred Miller and actually offered him a contract which he will decide on by early this week. Miller is deciding between N.O. and the Bears.

The Saints also have Oklahoma RT Jammal Brown as their #1 tackle prospect in next month's draft. A lot of different scenario's at RT as is stands now.

Itula Mili(TE-Sattle) and Anthony Thomas(RB-Chicago) are meeting with Saints officials today. Thomas is a Winfield, La. native. He'd be the primary back-up to Deuce.

I am still hopeful we will land Dwight Smith at FS(he can play CB as well). That would enable us to release Tebucky Jones on June 1st. Smith is younger, more aggressive, and a MUCH BETTER tackler than TJ. That would be a very nice addition to our secondary. I still think we need to draft a CB on day one of the draft.

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Hey, welcome to the board. Watch for LKelley as he may be jealous you are taking his job as the resident info guy. ;)

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Thanks for the welcome. I\'m a Saints diehard and have been my entire life. I think the more information we can gather will make this an even better forum. I look forward to being a part of it.

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I\'ve been thinking about Brown as our first pick. If that is to be a real option, we had better get ourselves a LB and Safety before the draft. Also, I\'m not sold on this \"Sullivan reborn\" stuff; I am of the view that BPA in the draft may well be a DT at #16.

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That\'s a tough call, JKool. One I\'ve thought about many times.
In the last 4-games, I thought Howard Green and Brian Young really stepped it up more than our youg linebackers. While neither one are ever likely to be dominant, they seem serviceable?

And with the possibility of Sullivan being able to step his game up, I don\'t know if drafting DT is the wise choice.

Instead, I would \"gamble\" at DT and draft LB if one is avaliable. It\'s going to depend on how free-agency shakes out. I can also see a need to draft a \"stud\" offensive LT.

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Getting a DT would allow us some trade options if Sully does step up. If he doesn\'t it provides us with a critical position fill.

I\'m not sold on rookie Tackles - they are busts as often as they are great or even solid; many times they are moved to Guard. I\'ll happily be corrected on that view, but for now that is my memory of the past 5 years at Tackle in the draft.

A DT who isn\'t a super star is never really a total loss, IMO.

I don\'t know what I think about this, but I feel like DTs are fairly deep in the first round, unlike OTs and LBs. If we were to take an LB other than DJ; I\'d like to see us trade down for an extra 2nd and take two of the middling LBs rather than reach with our first pick. If we trade down, I think we can still get Thomas Davis, who would help our aging Safety corps.

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Good point gator.

What\'s happening... no bickering, good points, and good ideas with the last couple of threads! What has our forum come too!?! :comp26: :broccoli:

[Edited on 6/3/2005 by papz]

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Gator,

Bicker... bicker... bicker...

I more or less agree with your assessment of our coaching staff, though.

I really hope that there is some validity to the rumor that Haz\' involvement in the defensive play calling over the last four games has some truth to it. With McCarthy gone, I think there is some reason for hope.

:soleil:

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There\'s truth to that, but the recent track record of first round DT\'s has brought a dearth of overpaid busts into the NFL. Some 1st rounders since 2000:

Chris Hovan (25th overall, 2000)
Gerard Warren (3rd overall, 2001)
Damione Lewis (12th overall, 2001)
Ryan Pickett (29th overall, 2001)
Wendell Bryant (12th overall, 2002)
Dewayne Robertson (4th overall, 2003)
Johnathan Sullivan (6th overall, 2003)
Kevin Williams (9th overall, 2003)
Jimmy Kennedy (12th overall, 2003)
William Joseph (25th overall, 2003)

Some of these guys might not necessarily be \"busts,\" but it\'s questionable whether they\'ve justified where they were taken. Yeah, hindsight and all, but I\'m not yet sold on another 1st round DT.

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I see your point Mutey; good research too.

I think the idea is this: while a first round DT may not be a super star, there is generally a floor as to how bad he\'ll be at his own position. That floor (in terms of playing ability) is acceptable, even if it is the case that he is way overpaid (as per your examples). That is different for OTs. While I haven\'t done the research, it takes OTs longer to develop, many of them end up playing OG instead of OT and more of them turn out to be busts than DTs. My general view regarding this is that the skill set for being an NFL OT is actually more difficult to guage coming out of College than that of DT.