I figured you knew better than believing that your reflecting and evaluating are of any interest to the Saints. Whew! That restores my faith. Then what is the goal of your reflection and evaluation? You eluded to it being something that would value the Saints, but I'm sure you'll agree that they already do far more of that than any of us. Right? How is a fan's dwelling on an individual draft choice from seven years ago relevant today? I'm curious.

How is you talking about you listening to your son play music in the past relevant today? It’s an interesting subject to you. That’s why it is discussed by some. It’s relevant to the subject of this Website and specifically this thread; which is about the Saints draft. That invites comparisons, (good and bad) to drafts in the past.

I have no issue with the discussion. That's what we are doing in case you missed it. I'm just questioning the labeling as blunders and explaining my opinion on why I do not see picks that didn't work out as blunders, but simply as picks that didn't work out. I even pointed out what I WOULD label as a draft blunder. You said the Saints need to reflect and evaluate, and I pointed out that they most certainly do already. Do you not agree? But after that reflection and evaluation I'm sure they move on instead of dwelling on the ones that didn't work.

I’m not sure (I could be wrong of course) that they do, or are capable of, efficiently self-reflecting their draft process. Case in point, you will NEVER convince me that they have efficiently evaluated, drafted, developed the LB position AND they haven’t evaluated their own prioritization of the position and their lack of success in doing so and cost of failure.

Boiling that down, they should have done much better at LB and they haven’t gotten any better in the entire time under Payton. I believe more success there, and a few Vernon Davis type plays don’t happen in the playoffs. So...No, I’m not sure they review their draft mistakes enough.

I agree that they really haven't concentrated to heavily on building and maintaining the LB via the draft. That's no blunder, however, it is just their way of operating. They place more value, obviously, on building other areas via the draft. They have shown they can address the LB position quite decently via free agency, however. Vilma, Lofton, and Davis are some shining examples, as are Fujita and Kwan. Maybe Werner will break that mold.

Doing a little thinking about your doubts that the Saints do any self-evaluation when it comes to the draft reminded me that following the season that followed the drafting of Baptiste (2014) the Saints fired director of college scouting, Rick Reiprish, and replaced him with none other than Jeff Ireland on January 20, 2015. Ireland completely overturned the college scouting department.

Without self-evaluation this would not have taken place. Also, given the entire department responsible for evaluating Baptiste was replaced it pretty much renders any current relevance meaningless, wouldn't you think?

Possibly. But it’s still Payton/Loomis even if evaluation staff changes. If no impactful LBs are developed after this last two year's Draft classes, then no. They’ve just put in guys that reinforce their opinions.

Dennis Allen's defensive scheme is clearly DL and DB centric. Here are the 2020 LB snap counts:

Player	Pos	Off Num	Pct	Def Num	Pct	ST Num	Pct
Demario Davis	LB	0	0%	1032	98.66%	6	1.32%	Demario Davis 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Kwon Alexander	LB	0	0%	350	33.46%	4	.88%	Kwon Alexander 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Alex Anzalone	LB	0	0%	525	50.19%	180	39.56%	Alex Anzalone 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Zack Baun	LB	0	0%	82	7.84%	247	54.29%	Zack Baun 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Craig Robertson	LB	0	0%	23	2.20%	360	79.12%	Craig Robertson 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Kaden Elliss	LB	0	0%	5	.48%	276	60.66%	Kaden Elliss 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Chase Hansen	LB	0	0%	1	.10%	24	5.27%	Chase Hansen 2020 game-by-game snap counts
Andrew Dowell	LB	0	0%	0	0%	11	2.42%	Andrew Dowell 2020 game-by-game snap counts

Davis was in on 98.66% of defensive snap counts. All of the other LB's combined weren't in on that many. That means they averaged less than two LB's on the field for the season on defensive snaps.

The defense clearly isn't designed for the LB to be that impactful. That isn't because of any draft success or lack thereof. It is based upon scheme.

And that forgives them for their poor LB record? The only way they have had any competent LBs was via trade/FA. I see that as a consistent weakness. Maybe if they’d expended some draft resources there they‘d have gotten another title. Maybe if they’d had decent LBs then the scheme would have favored more 4-3 sets. Maybe I’m just not going to blindly believe they did the right thing?