Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Brock Bowers - TE Georgia

Saints have ignored the TE position for quite some time.

You need more PLAYMAKERS to compete with the big boys on Sundays.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I don't want us to spend money in free agency. We have a lot of players who getting old for their positions and/or have major injury concerns such as Kamara, Davis, and Ram. I think the wisest move would be to use any spare money to avoid restructuring their contracts or spending the year well under the cap so we have financial flexibility to take dead cap hits later when they come, not extend them all to age 40. If we max or it will be cheaper to keep them all until they are Brady's age, on a year by year basis. I think we should also explore trades, but we can't do that if we can't afford dead cap hit one would bring.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

F the Falcons. Don't copy their model. Tight end in the 1st round has not worked in 30 years.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Saints also need a legit replacement for Ramz.

This is a OLD team and people are still talking that "win now mode" for 4, 5 years now.

It's time to rebuild this franchise with young studs.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Who is talking about the Falcons Bako? And who is copying them?

The Saints need legit playmakers all across the board. If this kid is rated the best on the scouts board and he is available, they select him ... so be it.

This organization needs more quality starters on both sides of the ball.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I think Jared Verse could be last years version of 2023 Rookie stud DE Lukas Van Ness (immediate impact for the Packers) who was selected at 13.

At pick #14, I think we'll have some good prospects available still on the board.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

BPA in the trenches from both the first and second round.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

The Falcons went TE high in the 1st round recently and it has not worked. Repeating their mistake would be copying them.

We need quality starters. We need playmakers. I think we need those on the oline and pass rush most. But an argument I have made many times and I am convinced of is that TE is not a position where you can predict from college who the playmakers will be in the NFL at an acceptable rate. It's a uniquely unpredictable position. The last great 1st round TE to come out in the draft was Tony Gonzalez. Every 1st round TE in the 30+ years since has been a 'Meh' value for position drafted or a total bust and all the great TE's since Tony have been later round picks. The average value at dline or oline in the 1st round is massively higher than in say the 3rd-5th. For TE its a crapshoot no matter what would you pick in, so smart teams take TE in later rounds. If you look at the TE position in the last 40 years there is almost no relationship between round drafted and great players, whereas at other positions the odds of finding a great player drop exponentially with each later round.

Being a successful TE in college translates to the pros more like being a successful college coach translates to the pros, not how success at dline or oline translates to the pros. Basically every college TE should be looked at like Mike Stoops or Chip Kelly.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Right. That's what we said 2 years ago and ended up with Penning who has struggled badly.

Oh don't leave out former 2nd rounder Foskey from last season either :rolleyes:. Who knows if he will pan out or not.

Saints gotta hit home runs on this 2024 draft.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Our front office was under the impression that BPA stood for Biggest Project Available. They have been drafting 'BPA' for years.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Now, that's funny stuff right there! Somebody in the scouting department needs to do a better job with the draft profile for our top draft picks.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Those first two Saints draft picks in 2024 …

Should either START or get in rotation as rookies.

Bryan Bresee was a solid 2023 selection. He’s looks like the truth.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Looks like we're trading all our picks the next two years to go and get Daniels. ;)

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I hope we can get a monster DT in the draft to pair with him

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Man not gonna lie…it’s still early but as of now I’m pretty high up on grabbing Dallas Turner if he’s available at 14. He might be better suited for a 3-4 scheme, but man I think he would be great not only as a LB to take over for Davis, but great at going get the qb. I feel like he’s gonna be a force.
But I only want him if Jared Verse isn’t available.
I’m thinking they might go offense being we spent last two top pics last year on defense.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I’m cool with that.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I'm with you there but I don't think he "fits" the prototype size (240 lbs) Allen prefers coming off the edge. Those Bama/LSU/Florida players transition well on the defensive side of the ball though.

I just hope we don't over look another impact player (Patrick Queen) in favor of offensive lineman (Ruiz :rolleyes:) ... 2020 draft.

We'll see.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I don't know what we are doing at the DT position. Drafting another seems like too much. We restructured both Saunders and Shepard. Bresee flashed as a backup. Roach had the highest PFF rating by far but is perhaps an afterthought because we are broke so you don't keep the best man you keep the one you can't afford the dead cap to cut. Drafting the position again before we really know what we have in last years 1st round pick seems insane.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I read he was closer to 260, but some of those sites aren’t always accurate.
I’m thinking even at 240 he’d still be as effective as a pass rusher from the LB position kinda like what they do with Baun who sits at 220.
Either way, LB is something we’ll need soon imo so why not now.
I just hope he doesn’t go to Atlanta being they’re going to a 3-4 scheme

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Well Bresee led DTs in sacks with 4.5, so I’d say thats a little more than just flashed. He has shown he’ll be a force with a great future as long as he stays healthy. Saunders and Shepard are fine for now, but in a couple of years it’d be nice to have two young studs anchor that position for the future while adding to the DE position.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I hope the best for Bresee. But realistically I think we need to hold off on the annointing oil. Truth is he was neither a bust nor breakout. 4.5 sacks is nice but not enough sample size to prove anything great. It’s equivalent to Trequan Smith’s 5 receiving TDs as a rookie, as sacks and receiving TDs are similar scarcity. Bresee’s pff score was like 50. He needs to start before we even start getting too excited.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I’m not really interested in his pff grade as a rookie. I’m not saying he came in and played as a pro bowl level DT, but I’m very optimistic from what I saw on game day. But to put it in perspective, cam Jordan had 1 sack, 18 tackles, 16 pressures his rookie year vs bresee had 4.5 sacks, 12 tackles, 18 pressures.
I feel very confident, barring injuries, that he’ll be a hell of a player for us and I really want another promising rookie DT. Hell, I want a whole youth movement along that line.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Saints Bresee Earns Rookie Recognition

New Orleans Saints rookie defensive tackle Bryan Bresee has already received a few early postseason recognition for his first-year achievements. Former NFL general manager Rick Spielman and CBS draft analyst Ryan Wilson named Bresee to their 2023 All-Rookie Team on the With the First Pick Podcast on CBSSports.com this week. Bresee joined Philadelphia Eagles DT Jalen Carter, the ninth overall choice, on the CBS All-Rookie squad.

Bresee made an immediate impact with New Orleans, something he was able to sustain throughout his inaugural season. He's appeared in all 16 games for a defense that ranks sixth in points against and 13th in total yardage allowed.

Bresee has 4.5 sacks, with two more disallowed by penalty this season. He's also added nine QB hits, seven tackles for loss, and 13 pressures for the Saints. Bresee has also tipped or batted down six passes and has significantly improved as a run defender.

The 6'5" and 305-Lb. Bresee has a terrific combination of power and athletic ability. He also plays with a non-stop motor, allowing him to make a lot of plays on second effort. He's shown a wider array of pass rush moves during the course of the season, further raising the bar of his tremendous potential.

Bryan Bresee has the look of a potential star. He's created consistent disruption for the New Orleans defense all season and greatly improved what had been an underachieving defensive interior over the previous two seasons. It's likely just the beginning of even bigger things to come for Bresee.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Lol, Brian Bresee is promising & has TALENT.

Saints have more pressing issues to deal with …

Defensive end & tackle.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Here's my guy. I have followed his career at NCSU (my school) and he's a stud. Sideline to sideline, tackling and coverage skills. Remember this name. Payton Wilson.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Dallas Turner would be great.

Do we spend the capital to trade up?

Depends on free agency IMO

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I'd also like to see us draft (lower round) another NT.

We haven't been nasty on that Dline since Malcom Brown was traded.

On the offensive side, I kinda like Cooper Beebe (G) from Kansas. He's played tackle, RG and also LG.

Day 2 projections by national scouts.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

There are some people on this forum who say all our members opinions are garbage and they would trust Mickey Loomis over all of us because he is a professional with untold expertise and resources. I guess that is my position with PFF. They watch every play 10x in slow motion or whatever and have a large staff developing a grading system. They are able to attract the respect of many experts and many subscribers. Their numbers, although not perfect, seem to align with what I see and be a better guide than optimistic fans. They have competed with other services and risen to the top. So while I think Mickey Loomis is a joke who lucked into his job and is sitting around all day golfing and chugging bottles of Beam, and others think he has a PhD in football, I guess I am on the the opposite side with pff and respect pff over random board members eyeball test. Clearly Bresee got a few sacks, but I think the low grades mean there are issues in other parts of his game. If he was a walking sack machine why wasn't he starting over low budget journeymen? How was he in run support? Did he blow assignments? For example, Bresee had 6 penalties as a backup vs 7 total penalties for all our other starting and backup dline combined. Call me back when his sack numbers at least exceed his penalties. To me, 4.5 sacks and 6 penalties sounds like a net loss. Hopefully he can clean up the penalties over time, but maybe when he does he gets less of a jump and gets less sacks too.

https://www.footballdb.com/stats/pen...?tm=20&yr=2023

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Jalen Carter had a pff grade of 90 and is reguarded as one of the best rookies out of that class and had only 1.5 sacks more and one less penalty than Bresee. You made a valiant effort with your points, but I’m sticking to my opinion on this one

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I don't think Daniels is realistic with the other moves we are making and our needs. We are already over the 2025 salary cap and moving on from Carr in 2025 would entail an about $50 million dead cap hit. We badly need oline to protect Carr or any other QB and pass rush to combine with our good secondary to make our defense work, and if we use our 1st round pick and other picks trading up to land Daniels, we can't use any of those picks on oline or pass rush this draft or even next draft.

So what would be the play here? Go into 2024 and 2025 with a QB controversy? Pay Taysom Hill $10 million to be the joker QB, Derek Carr $40 million to be the pocket QB, and spend two years of 1st round picks and more on Daniels who could be both in the future, but can't be either now unless we bench one of those highly paid guys? We would be spending more resources on the QB position than any team in the NFL while dividing those resources 3 ways and ignoring glaring weaknesses in the trenches for multiple years. And the same would likely continue in 2025 given our cap situation. Then maybe in 2026 if we made a lot of cap sacrifices we could eventually go through a 2 year rebuild to pay off the dead cap of cutting Carr and Hill in the 2026 offseasons and emerge able to start adding the oline and pass rush pieces to compete with Daniels from 2028-2029. Meanwhile if Daniels works out, we completely miss the ability to use his rookie contract years to our advantage? It makes no sense. Either rebuild and be able to purge Carr's salary at least by 2025 by not restructuring him this year (we already restructured him) or ride with Carr and take a QB with the early pick we get later if he crashes, or we lose a lot during a rebuild year after cutting him.

I don't even think Loomis or DA are seriously considering taking Daniels. What I think they are doing is PR. Keeping the fans interested. It was a rough season. The Saints were not fun to watch. LSU was. The idea of Daniels is the bread crumbs to tide fans over with excitement for a few months of the offseason while the reality of restructuring Carr, Ram, and a bunch of past their prime players with another year of DA as head coach sets in. We don't actually need to draft Daniels for speculation of a move to excite fans. It's like a celebrity dating rumor, it keeps our name in the news even if it has no basis in fact. It's free advertising for Mickey Loomis' Ford Pinto.

Meanwhile DA and Loomis may actually be thinking of trading up for a flashier oline or pass rusher to mortgage the future and win an extra game or two now to buy themselves an extra year. Another Marcus Davenport or Trevor Penning style hail mary to save their jobs. That might not be palatable to fans. But if they sell the idea of trading up with the shiny prospect of drafting fan favorite Daniels, even if its unrealistic, that will force many fans to accept the idea of the Saints trading up, and they can bait and switch the move to trade up for Daniels into trading up for their next Davenport. In reality we should stand pat and draft at our original position so that if we fail, there is an insurance policy in the form of a high 2025 draft pick so that our GM and HC job openings are actually attractive to candidates when they open up. Of course Loomis and DA would probably rather trade our future picks to make those jobs unattractive so that we will have to retain them because "who else can we get, we won't be high on anyone's list."

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Agree to disagree. I think PFF are generally professionals and although they cannot factor in certain intangibles like how a player performs in clutch situations and the postseason, they are the best metric we have.

Carter also added two forces fumbles and a fumble recovery. Given that Carter is a heavier and more stout in stature, its not unreasonable to speculate that he may have been much better against the run, and the Saints regressed against the run this year. Meanwhile Carter also added a bit more sacks with a bit less penalties.

The Saints also played a historically easy schedule and the easiest part of the Saints schedule was the QBs, playing an incredible cast of D-list backup, lame duck, journeyman, and draft bust QBs. The particular weakness of the Saints super easy schedule was the offenses they faced, as many of their opponents had closer to average defenses. The Eagles schedule was more average all around. Bresee was essentially out there hunting minnows for his 4.5 sacks. Also, you can't sack the QB if a teammate does it first. That put Bresee in a foot race with a bunch of tortoises on our pass rush while Carter was in an olympic sprint with the Eagles defense. The folks at PFF actually watch all the plays multiple times in slow motion. They likely timed how fast Bresee actually got to the QB, and maybe they were not so impressed if he got to Tommy Devito in 10 seconds or got Baker Mayfield to hold the ball a little too long. Actually 4 of Bresee's 4.5 sacks were against Devito and Mayfield who earned a combined $5 million salary. You just can't judge an entire rookie season 5 plays and break out the anointing oil. To me, I have high hopes for Bresee, I see the potential, but the jury is still out. 4.5 sacks and a 45 PFF is not the second coming of Warren Sapp just yet.

When guys like Kamara and Lattimore tore it up with crazy PFF numbers their rookie year we believed it. We should not pick and choose and dismiss PFF when we don't like the number. Especially for a position like DT that does not rely on anyone throwing the the ball or blocking for them and is in a position to make their own luck by beating their man. Carter consistently beat his man. Bresee sacked Devito twice and Mayfield twice and stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Haters gonna hate.

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

You’re really splitting hairs here, but good news is theres something we both found common ground on, and that’s agree to disagree

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Rd 1, Saints pick #14.

Olumuyiwa Fashanu, OL

Penn State

Hadn't allowed a sack in his 3-year college career and is only 21. We really need someone to solidify the tackle position for the next 7-10 years.
He's athletic (over 6'6" tall) & has superior pass protection qualities.

All Big 10, All Big Ten Academic

Maybe Kubiak moves Trevor Penning inside to guard?

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I actually had that same thought about moving Penning to G. I wonder if he can thrive there

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

Re: Official 2024 Saints Draft Discussion
 

I think it's safe to say Turner is a top 10 talent who could fall especially if there's a run on QBs. I don't think anyone expects him to be there at 14 so yeah, it make sense we'd have to trade.

I'd hate to lose Lattimore but again, it depends on the return.

Imagine if we land another pick in the top 75 for Lattimore.