hagan714

1 7 Sedrick Ellis Defensive Tackle Southern California

Saints Head Coach Sean Payton was pleased the team was able to land one of the top prospects in the draft and a player the team clearly targeted heading into the draft. “He’s an active player. He’s probably more nose (tackle) when you watch the college film, but he’s a guy who can play in a three-technique. He gives us flexibility in regards to the pass rush. One thing about him is that the guy plays with great intensity. We saw a lot of film on him and saw him at the Senior Bowl. He was one of the guys as the draft started that we held in high regard and I’m happy we were able to get up there and get in a position to select him.”

New Orleans Saints - Saints Trade Up and Take USC DT Sedrick Ellis

2 40 Tracy Porter Cornerback Indiana

“The Saints told me they liked my speed,” Porter said. “They like my ball skills and they liked me, they like how I play and they like my style of play. I didn’t know they were going to draft me.”
“He’s a guy that does fill a need,” said Payton of Porter’s selection. “He’s a returner. He has good ball skills. He was the captain of his team. The staff there (at Indiana), I know very well. His prior head coach, the late Terry Hoeppner who passed away not too long ago was someone that I worked with for a number of years as well as Bill Lynch, the current head coach at Indian now and a number of assistant coaches. You scout this player from when he arrived at Indiana, all the way through his senior year; he’s done a lot of things that we would look for in our corners. We were excited. When you get the end and you have two or three players in that round that you’ve kind of blocked off and you just hope they don’t go in front of you, which can oftentimes happen, in this case, we were fortunate that it didn’t.”


New Orleans Saints - Saints Draft Indiana CB Tracy Porter in 2nd Rd


5 144 DeMario Pressley Defensive Tackle North Carolina State

“We like him as a player, clearly,” said Loomis. “We felt like he had an upside. To be honest with you, we got a little nervous that he might go in the spot before us. The team in front of us we thought had a need at that position and in fact took a player at that position with their pick. We just got a little nervous that he might go. The cost to move, a seventh round pick, we didn’t feel was very heavy, so we made the move and got the player we wanted to get. We may have been able to take him if we stayed at where we were, but we had a conviction on this player, so I think it was a good move for us.

New Orleans Saints - Saints Select NCSU DT DeMario Pressley in Fifth Round

5 164 Carl Nicks Tackle Nebraska

“Nick is a big powerful man that we think has a lot of upside,” said Loomis. “He needs some work and needs to be developed a bit, but we feel that the upside he has is very high and we will see whether either of the guard positions or the tackle spots are best suited to him.”

New Orleans Saints - Saints Select T Carl Nicks With 2nd Pick in Fifth Round

6 178 Taylor Mehlhaff Kicker Wisconsin

“We have strong competition at a lot of positions, which pleases us,” said Loomis. “Taylor is the only kicker, and we worked out quite a few of them, that we really considered drafting. He is a strong-legged guy and has been consistent and improved each season. We are happy to have him and think that the competition at kicker is going to be a positive situation.”

New Orleans Saints - Saints in Sixth Round Tab Wisconsin K Taylor Mehlhaff

7 237 Adrian Arrington Wide Receiver Michigan

“We liked the potential that he has and the level of competition he has played against and think that there is something there that we can work with,” said Loomis. “He has good size and ball skills and think that he’ll benefit from the veterans that we have at the position and from the coaching that he’ll get when he gets in our program.”

New Orleans Saints - Saints Catch Michigan WR Adrian Arrington in 7th Rd


New Orleans Saints - Saints 2008 Draft In The Books

"We may have lost the game, but you'll be hurting tomorrow." Doug Atkins

saintsfan1976

Nice post Hagan.


In regards to my earlier post where I gave ranked the draft a B, the more I read, the more I realize that the players we drafted were "luxury picks" with low risk vs high reward. Triplett's article sums it up perfectly:

Here's more from Mike Triplett:
Day 2 of this year's draft felt like a luxury for the Saints, who had already addressed their most pressing needs throughout the depth chart.

All four of their picks Sunday were more about potential and upside than they were about immediate need -- which was a good thing, because the Saints didn't have a pick in the third or fourth rounds.

They started the day in Round 5 by trading up two spots to draft North Carolina State defensive tackle DeMario Pressley. Obviously, they didn't need another tackle after drafting Sedrick Ellis on Saturday, but they couldn't resist Pressley's athleticism.

Later, the Saints rolled the dice with two low-risk, high-reward prospects that fell because of character concerns -- Nebraska offensive tackle/guard Carl Nicks in the fifth round, and Michigan receiver Adrian Arrington in the seventh.

New Orleans also became the first team in the draft to select a kicker, using a sixth-round pick on Wisconsin's Taylor Mehlhaff, who will compete with veteran Martin Gramatica.

"When you look at our roster, there are a lot of positions that are going to be hard for a rookie to make our team," Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis said Sunday. "One of the first things you look at is, can a guy at this position make our team? The thing is, you look at upside.
Can you envision a particular player developing into a starter?

"Obviously, you don't think they're ready now, otherwise they'd be drafted higher. But we had a vision for the players that we took today that they can develop and maybe help us down the road."

Nicks, a 6-foot-5, 341-pound lineman who could play either right tackle or guard in the NFL, was originally rated as a second- or third-round draft prospect. But he set himself back when he was arrested in March during a party at a friend's house.

He was one of four current or former Nebraska players cited for being an inmate of a disorderly house, and he was thrown into jail after adding a citation for failure to disperse. Charges were later dismissed.

New Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini, however, punished Nicks by banning him from the school's pro day, which was obviously a costly punishment for a draft prospect. It wasn't the first incident for Nicks, who was benched for the first quarter of one game as a senior for undisclosed disciplinary reasons. The 25-year-old also had some academic issues that forced him to bounce around from New Mexico State to Hartnell Junior College to Nebraska.

When asked if he thinks the character issue hurt his draft stock, Nicks quickly replied, "It murdered it." But he said he was grateful the Saints offered him an opportunity.

"Everything happens for a reason. I got drafted by a great team," Nicks said. "I guarantee nothing like that will ever happen again."

The Saints took the pick seriously. Coach Sean Payton has a good relationship with former Nebraska Coach Bill Callahan, so he got plenty of background on Nicks. Payton also spent about 30 minutes on the phone with Nicks on Sunday before the Saints made the pick.

"We didn't feel in his case that it was as much of real bad character as it was maybe some maturity issues that we were willing to look at and go with," said Payton, who insisted that Nicks wasn't getting a free pass. "He understands that he's coming here to an environment where we have little tolerance."

The Saints felt equally comfortable with Arrington, with whom they also have a personal connection. Saints tight ends coach Terry Malone was a former assistant at Michigan who helped recruit Arrington.

Arrington was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence in 2006 after having an argument with his girlfriend at 3 a.m. According to the police report, he grabbed her keys from her and pushed her out of her car after she came to pick him up at a bar. Charges were never filed.

"Terry spoke highly of him, and we felt he earned an opportunity,"
Loomis said of the Saints' research into Arrington's character.

Loomis said the Saints take character concerns seriously, but there are also varying degrees, based on both the player and the investment involved. The Saints were hoping to land Arrington as an undrafted free agent, but they decided to trade a sixth-round pick in next year's draft to Green Bay to move into the seventh round and secure him.

The reason the Saints didn't have their own seventh-round pick Sunday was because they sent it to Detroit earlier in the day to move up and draft Pressley.

Pressley, a 6-3, 301-pounder, never quite lived up to his potential in college, partly due to a series of nagging injuries. But the Saints are excited to get a hold of that potential -- especially defensive line coach Ed Orgeron, who worked him out one final time last week.

"I am going to work hard this offseason and preseason to really show everybody what I can do," said Pressley, who only missed three games in college. "Those two injuries (wrist and knee) were the only major ones that I have had in my four years there, and I think they were both just a freak accident. I am a tough guy and I can handle it."

Mehlhaff didn't have anything to overcome, other than the fact that he is a kicker. Only a handful of specialists get drafted every year, and the Saints haven't drafted a kicker since 1982.

Of course, that turned out all right. That kicker was Morten Andersen.

Also like Andersen, Mehlhaff is left-footed. He might have the strongest leg of any kicker coming out of college this year, and he's probably the best overall athlete.

Mehlhaff played quarterback in high school and said he had the choice between kicking at a major university or playing quarterback at a smaller school.

"I'm a gamer, and I'm big on the atmosphere of the game," Mehlhaff said of his choice. "I grew up going to Division I football games, and that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to play in front of those crowds, and I thrive in those situations."

Mehlhaff, who also played hockey and baseball growing up, showed off his competitive side by performing in the bench press test during the NFL combine. His 13 reps were two shy of his goal, but he showed scouts something nonetheless. He also wanted to run the 40-yard dash, but he didn't want to risk an injury.

Payton said the Saints aren't eager to replace Gramatica, but they wanted to bring in some serious competition for him. So they spent more time than usual scouting the top available kickers.

Even if Mehlhaff doesn't beat out Gramatica, he could stick as a kickoff specialist -- or who knows, maybe even a wedge-buster.

"I just have an athlete's mentality that I bring to the table,"
Mehlhaff said. "I really didn't start kicking seriously until my senior year of high school, so I really think I have a ton of upside."

As Sunday night wore on, the Saints were working to sign about nine or 10 undrafted free agents, but they don't release those names until the players are signed. Payton said he was hoping to land one of two quarterbacks that he particularly likes. The Saints likely will address the linebacker, safety and running back positions with undrafted free agents.

papz

Good stuff.

BRSaintsFan

Well put. They are indeed luxury picks. Many think that we could have addressed the LB spot with some youth, but overall, when you draft a K, typically you have the luxury to not fill another need or provide depth to another position. I personally like the Pressley pick. He was a DT that I thought the Saints should have targeted although I had him higher. Hopefully he can come in and the competition will light a fire and make him the player he has the potential to be. If he can find a way to unleash the potential he has and the potential that he was recruited for when he went to NC St as an elite high school recruit, you could have a force in the middle of the line with him and Ellis.

BooBirdSaint

Don't you know Payton was Jones'n. Picks 1, 2 & 3 Defense. Man I bet he was hot...

hagan714

nice add on saintfan

saintsrule

That is some great news to hear about the players, the Saints drafted. I hope they all become great players.