WhoDat!656

Modified: Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 12:20 a.m.
Give the New Orleans Saints scouting department major props for landing former Tampa Bay Buccaneer, Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks middle linebacker Barrett Ruud last week.

In their preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Saints' linebacking depth was almost completely wiped out due to injuries.

While middle linebacker Curtis Lofton, who is probably the biggest free agent acquisition in the NFC, expects to return to the lineup by the first regular season game against the Washington Redskins, the Saints have no depth behind him due to the knee injury to David Hawthorne, who might miss a regular season game or two, and the season-ending knee injury to Chris Chamberlain.

Ruud's play has not been at the high level mark set in Tampa due to injuries and he has been beaten out twice by rookies the last two seasons in Colin McCarthy and Bobby Wagner, but there is no questioning his football instincts, his ability to get to the right angle of pursuit, his solid open field tackling skills and his ability to drop back in coverage well.

Landing Ruud for a late-round draft choice as an insurance policy was smart, and you have to give Saints director of pro scouting Ryan Pace credit for finding the wily veteran on the NFL radar when it was obvious this football team needed a veteran presence in the middle.

In a time in which the Saints lost not only the best coach in the history of the team, but also the best talent evaluator they have ever had as a head coach in Sean Payton, it is obvious that the scouting skills of Pace and director of college scouting Rick Reiprish have not gone unnoticed.

Finding Barrett Ruud | HoumaToday.com

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."