Rugby Saint II

Do you mean it takes two years to develop them? Since we develop so many small school program players that need a lot of work then they don't really have an impact until their contract year. It's kind of aggravating really. I agree we have had some success with DB's though.

Stop with all these reaches in the draft that we do every year and draft proven players from large programs that are well trained coming into the NFL.

Stop moving up in the draft for that one player we just have to have at all costs. And stop trading away draft picks rather than restocking the shelves with those picks and developing them.

Stop drafting based solely on the players raw athletic score. Measurables are valuable. I understand the benefits of the RAS but it's not the end all for evaluating players. A change needs to be made this offseason to either the scouting department or the decision makers who make the pick from their big board.

AsylumGuido

You mean Jeff Ireland? From what I have gathered nobody in the coaching realm has anywhere near the input as did Sean Payton when it comes to the draft. That leaves Ireland these days.

BakoSaint

One good draft cannot take care of the age of our roster because the players we draft won't displace our older players. They can't because we can't afford the dead cap hits from not restructuring and extending our older players. Our core of aging and injury prone veterans will be retained because we have to restructure them all to get under the cap and can't afford to cut them. If we draft good young players they will likely displace other youngish players like Lynn Bowden, Trevor Penning, DMarco Jackson, Jordan Howden, Landon Young, etc. Also the Saints only have 2 picks in the first 4 rounds.

The average age of the roster is just an easy approximation for the aging of talent. In reality our problem is worse. Many of our starters, and especially our most talented and/or costly starters, are way over the hill for their positions or breaking down. This includes Carr, Jordan, Davis, Lattimore, Ram, Mathieu, and Kamara. We may be unable to move on from ANY of these players due to our salary cap situation. We could get a younger Punter or a younger 4th string TE but that won't matter much. To get younger in a useful way, teams need to move on from investing too much money in highly paid aging starters who are past their prime.

It's great that Davis had a great season but his age matters a lot. If he had that season at 27 we could expect many similar great seasons ahead. Having that great season at his current age, and our team still only being .500 with a historically easy schedule, means we could hit the jackpot on a an all pro defender in the draft and actually get worse, because age could finally catch up with Davis and he could quickly become a liability, and the all pro defender we add in the 1st round could simply be a break even. But because we are in cap hell and have to max restructure Davis's contract, we could owe more outstanding prorated dollars than ever, so we are actually worse off having the same talent for more total money.

We need to get meaningfully younger. To do that we need to be able to move on from some of our older players or downsize their salaries to be compatible with a decreasing role. Our salary cap situation and Cap Voldemort's management style prevent us from doing that. Our two picks in the first 4 rounds won't make up for a dozen veterans all getting a year older on the oldest team in the league.

There is a chance we will move on from Thomas, Peat, and Winston. However, we also may not, as there are probably situations where extending them to defer dead cap could save us a dollar against this years salary cap, and in Mickey Loomis's book $1 is enough to split a beer with Pete Carmicheal on ladies night. But moving on from those guys won't solve our problems (though giving them good money would make them worse). They are not starters except Peat. Thomas greatly helped our team by lighting a fire under Carr on Twitter and has made Carr a better player since. Winston is a relatively cheap veteran backup which is something most teams have. We really need to move on from the guys with mega deals to have a youth movement. Peat has actually been a good value after we finally ended the 5 year failed experiment of playing him at guard and realized he is a left tackle.

saintsfan1976

The Pro Bowl is a popularity contest.

saintsfan1976

One solid draft coupled with free agency could significantly improve our roster.

That may mean addition through subtraction i.e. Lattimore.

But I agree with you in that the approach has arguably led to a lack of depth that's shown up all season.

TheOak

This right here. This is a hubris pitfall a lot of teams fall into, they believe they have the talent on the coaching staff to polish that player or fix the broken parts and generally do not. We had a knack for it which I have not seen in some years.

Rugby Saint II

We still think like Sean Payton does. We think that we are the smartest people in the room. The problem is Sean Payton isn't in the room anymore. DA,and company are clueless.

BakoSaint

Maybe RAS is a proxy for eye candy and Mickey Loomis is basically just swiping right on Grinder in the draft. He prefers a certain body type.

saintsfan1976

Now that's funny!

SmashMouth